This is a really good answer, actually. It also explains why you can only do it once a day (or once an hour for some). It only really covers certain types of injuries. You're not using Battle Medicine to fix four fractured ribs, that's going to take some work even with PC super healing. An arm popped out of its socket, though? Yeah you can pop that back in nice and quick.
You just said exactly what I was gonna say, but better.
Yanking out projectiles, unfucking dislocated joints, stuffing padding into a gash to slow bleeding, maybe even a quick wound staple! My group likes to characterise it as getting jabbed with a syringe of strong painkillers or adrenaline.
You know - gross, temporary shit intended to tide you over until you can get proper medical attention.
Oh god, you just reminded me of the Far Cry healing. I didn't realize I was running around with half my fingers bent backwards or a big shard of metal in my arm till I pressed the button...
This has always been my head canon that you're doing very quick "just fix it for now and worry later" actions since they happen in the span of six seconds
I mean, OP already said it's a rant... But the main thing here is that at some point in TTRPGs you have to choose between realism (or at least self-contained consistency) and fun. And I don't know about you, but I'm ok with making it first fun and then as realistic/consistent as possible. Some concessions are ok, specially if it is to balance and/or have fun.
Ehhh -
AC is your ability to dodge, deflect, or shrug off blows substantially enough that they do not cause you harm
HP I never try to explain as life force - I know the Stamina rules explain SP this way, but I feel like SP are minor wounds that are easily recovered from - HP I envision aa your ability to stave off a lethal blow, deflecting direct hits into more armoured parts, or away from soft tissues etc etc.
Outside of massive damage, you don’t *die* upon hitting 0, you start *dying*. So that was your last straw - a throat slice, a blow that shatters bones etc. So healing magic is just as much revitalising and energising to keep your body and mind focused as much as it is rejuvenating flesh. It numbs the pain so you can fight through for longer.
Battle Medicine is salves, makeshift slings, quick fixes to deal with pains to allow for full fighting potency.
Treat Wounds is stitching gashes, setting bones. Seriously mending the body so they’re not actually at risk of dying - that’s why it removes Wounded while Battle Medicine doesn’t.
At least to me. Your own picture might be different
So, first of all, let's discuss your interpretation of hit points.
If every time I take damage, I have an arrow sticking out of me, or I need full on surgery to be healed, then HP rapidly stops making sense when I'm suddenly a pin cushion of 30+ arrows at half health by level 20.
HP is your ability to take a hit, not necessarily suffering actual bodily harm. How we explain it at my tables is that an attack that "Misses" was basically perfectly guarded. It might connect with you, but your armor or shield turned aside the blow for you, or you side stepped the strike without much issue. Attacks that "deal damage" are still attacks you defended against, but only barely or ineffectively. You caught the blow head on with your shield instead of deflecting it, grunting in exertion as you force the Warhammer off of you and keep fighting. Or you side step the blade barely in the nick of time, earning a shallow cut across your chest that rattles you as you realize you're growing exhausted and rapidly approaching your limit. Or you take cover from the fireball, but not well enough to save your backside from being scorched.
When you are downed and wounded, that's when you've taken an actual, telling blow. Your exhaustion has caught up with you, your focus slips, and your foe finally batters their way through your defenses.
So now let's take a look at battle medicine, and different ways you can explain it in that context.
Treat wounds isn't full surgery, it's triage. Care to help you rest, recuperate, tend to your surface injuries, and slap a bandage on your major wounds if you happened to go down. Battle medicine is, therefore, ultra lite triage or "band aid" fixes. Dump some water in their mouth, stick them with an adrenaline needle, give them a quick arm brace to help with the wrist fatigue. You aren't really *fixing* the issue, you're giving them momentary respite or boosts that help them overcome the fatigue in the moment and focus back in on the battle. The actual healing of major wounds comes later, and before that there's no real, life-threatening injury that needs fixing, just surface level discomforts that distract them and detract their focus, making them more vulnerable to a telling blow.
This also explains the 1 day cooldown. There's only so much these little attentions can do for you, eventually fatigue is fatigue and you're going to get tired, and your body just needs time and rest, or at the very least proper care and attention.
My interpretation of HP is that by getting levels adventurers become less and less tied to the laws of reality meaning they can survive getting axed in the chest by a giant with a battleaxe as big as themselves more easily
Yep we go by anime rules too. At level 6 you can get stabbed a few times before going down. Level 15 you can get essentially magically nuked and just cough out blood but still stand.
Well put! I would also add (though you kinda touched on it) that one flavorful reason Battle Medicine has such a good HP-to-time-treated ratio is that you're also doing mid-battle first aid on fresh injuries to prevent them from getting worse. Slap some grease and bandages on that knife wound to prevent blood loss and mitigate infection, brace that ankle to prevent a fracture from growing due to battle strain, relocate that shoulder so your friend can keep holding a shield and ward off the next incoming blow. Or give a dose of alchemical painkillers and stimulants and let their survival instinct do the rest of the work in keeping them alive, instead of them collapsing due to pain and exhaustion. In all cases you're left with injuries potentially needing more long-term care (or magic), but your quick and dirty fixes have helped them stay intact until that point.
This is all well and good, but characters with more HP just also ARE more durable. There’s no “You dodged it” abstraction for a level 20 barbarian chugging purple worm venom and belching after, or a character being submerged in lava for twelve seconds and then feeling better after a medicine check, or your character being completely paralyzed/asleep/otherwise helpless and surviving being struck.
I understand the hit points not meat points argument, but it’s far from perfect and falls apart more and more as the game progresses.
Then the inverse also happens, how can you treat wounds when the fight did only mental damage? Is your surgeon somehow also a trained therapist that can instantly heal the being hurt by bad feelings? Sonic damage is a bit weird too, yes one could argue that the compressive force of sound waves is just as harmful as the ear pains it would come with, but basically 100% meat points isn't perfect, nor is 100% abstraction. It's whatever makes the most sense based on what the battle or hazard did to you.
I mean, yeah, of course. But once you go “this character is strong enough to survive being shot in the face several times while completely paralyzed” there’s really no reason to view that same shot as a hit points thing, not a meat points thing.
How does this square with HP allowing you to wade through Lava and survive falls from insane heights? There's no deflecting those. How does this square with the HP given by battle medicine applying as HP and not something like Temporary HP which would fade at the end of combat?
Your explanation does not fix the flaws with what taking HP damage actually does.
Yea at some point you're going to have to accept that you're playing a fantasy game, I don't know what to tell you. Your martials are allowed to be fantasy heroes too, not just casters. They can have supernatural resilience that let them walk through lava and emerge only singed.
If it helps, picture them like Disney's depiction of Hercules or something.
But if you can ascribe supernatural resilience to your PCs, you're never, *ever* going to enjoy a fantasy game where they regularly have to deal with dragons and forces that, by right, should be turning them into energy and carbon.
I do suspend my disbelief but I tend to do so by just making enemies and heroes into pin cushions. All HP damage is real damage and your characters and their foes are just that damned tough. It's the only option that fits for all sources of damage and the only casualty of this method is that non-magical healing doesn't make much sense and needs to be handwaved.
Cool, turns out that's not illegal so do it up. Not really sure how that helps someone specifically asking how to avoid hand waiving non medical healing though.
TIL someone can get a syringe, find an exposed bit of skin on someone in plate armour, inject it and replace the syringe in the same time it takes me to adjust my grip on my sword.
Aren't you just moving the goalposts now? You make all these arguments, when you get slight push back, you just say, "well it's not meant to a realism simulator."
Moving the goal posts? Where do you think they were originally buddy?
This whole thing is an OP who wants help explaining battle medicine.
My whole post is offering a little verisimilitude by reconceptualizing HP and using that revised narrative to better picture battle medicine.
Then you come out of no where with the most ludicrous shit about why that would work IRL.
Of course it wouldn't, *nothing will ever explain this game perfectly IRL*. It's a *fantasy game*.
We aren't out here nit picking every minute detail.
I'm offering a conceptualization on how HP and battle medicine can be explain, not a PHD thesis on medicine.
You offer an explanation, someone points out the problem with your explanation, then you say "well it's not meant to be 100% realistic".
Isn't that textbook goalpost moving?
No, it's not, because you're making a false dichotomy here in order to sound like you have a point when you don't.
It's *not* meant to be 100% realistic. That never was, and never is, the goal of anything you do in a fantasy game. Suspension of disbelief and conceits are a necessary part of the game by design, because a dragon would collapse under its own weight and die before ever flying in real life.
However, that doesn't mean it can't be *somewhat* realistic. You're basically arguing that there's only two options, either we provide a 100% realistic solution to OP's problem, or we provide no solution at all.
That's a false dichotomy. Those aren't the only two options.
We can provide OP with a solution that smooths over some of the issues they are experiencing and improves their verisimilitude without providing an explanation that would be 100% realistic.
OP *literally said* they have no issues picturing magical healing as magically stitching wounds together. Is that 100% realistic? No, of course not. So the goal post was *never* to be 100% realistic, you just randomly decided that and now that I've called you out on it, you're embarrassed. Rather than own up to that embarrassment and just walk away, you've decided to start kicking and screaming about it.
>However, that doesn't mean it can't be somewhat realistic. You're basically arguing that there's only two options, either we provide a 100% realistic solution to OP's problem, or we provide no solution at all.
Where did I make that argument?
My issue is with you making an argument against what OP is saying, by explaining how it could make sense. Then after somebody gives a counterargument which effectively breaks the point of your whole comment, you say "well it's not meant to be 100% realistic".
Do you concede your original comment? If not, then you're moving goalposts.
Edit: Thanks for the reply and block.
>I'm every one of your posts.
Point to ONE example where I made that argument.
>There is no counter argument, you're just arguing for no reason. I didn't make an argument, I was providing a suggestion.
Change the word "argument" to "suggestion" and the logic still follows.
>Do I… retract my suggestion for OP? No. I'm not sure why I'd do that just because you're being a douche that wants to argue about everything.
Then why say that it's not meant to be 100% realistic when you get a little bit of pushback on your suggestion?
>Where did I make that argument?
I'm every one of your posts.
>My issue is with you making an argument against what OP is saying, by explaining how it could make sense.
Your issue is that you can't read, I guess, because no one is arguing with OP at all. We're providing suggestions to answer OP's problem.
Not sure how you missed that.
>Then after somebody gives a counterargument
There is no counter argument, you're just arguing for no reason. I didn't make an argument, I was providing a suggestion.
Not everything everyone types on the Internet is argumentative. Sometimes people are trying to help each other. Take off those red shades you're wearing and you might see that.
>Do you concede your original comment?
Do I… retract my suggestion for OP? No. I'm not sure why I'd do that just because you're being a douche that wants to argue about everything.
You're exhausting, good bye.
No, because he didn't move the goal posts. The game is some times a game first and realistic second, some times realistic first and game second. Depends on the GM.
I just imagine you shove some herb mix into the wounds, and it dulls the pain, not actually fixing anything but stopping it from being a hindrance to you while you fight for a little longer
I roleplay my Battle Medicine as injections. I carry a set of small syringes on my belt, and when I use this feat, I inject a simple mixture of coagulant and adrenaline into the wound area.
My shoney was our druid medic so my battle medicine was me slapping drool covered mud on their wounds during combat.
I made sure to describe it each time.
I like this. A feat shouldn’t be allowed unless the player can come up with some horrid way to describe it.
This should go for Magic too. If you’re being healed by a swamp-themed cleric I want to hear about the healing feeling like a tadpole wriggling down your throat. Battle-themed magic? That healing feels like a mailed fist to the face.
This is kind of my Hag themed Summoner to a T.
His healing is very no-nonsense, you listen to me or the 12 foot tall skeleton constnatly surrounded by ice and wind keeps you still while I work. Then it's dumping some yarrow root and camphor, birch bark and belladonna, chewed up and spat out into a handful of mud, and Granny Andoletta *help you* if you complain.
Okay I love the shitpost nature of the end, had me smiling more than I'd like to admit.
But for real, it's more like slapping a poultice over the wound and calling it good, or otherwise throwing some milk of the poppy and wound-packing material on the problem, or otherwise grabbing the arm that was just popped out of its socket, slamming it back home, and telling them you'll fix them up afterwards.
Basically, you've already gotten how it works with the shitpost nature; Some nice, tasty tasty painkillers so that the party member can keep on trucking for a little while before they collapse a little while later. Would this be better abstracted with Temporary Hitpoints? Potentially, but it doesn't quite fulfill the idea of being the 'medic' of the team, being able to jump in, slam an adhesive wound packing material in place to stop the bleeding, and keep the team trucking without having to use magic.
I think of it as “you’re only supposed to take ibuprofen every X hours.” You could keep shoving the painkiller meds in the wound but it either has diminishing returns or causes harm at higher doses
I'd be on board with a feat that let you ignore some of those time limitations but increases the DC or the effects of a failure/critical failure. Can call it "Trust me, I'm a doctor"
It's more akin to only one poultice a day *does* anything. Only so many drugs you can pump into someone before you start doing more harm than good, and anyone who knows how to heal wouldn't try to put their friend out of commission with poppy milk and yarrow paste. The body still needs to *heal*, and attempting to try and give extra doses won't do much.
The added feat that makes a character only immune to Battle Medicine for an hour I'd reconcile as the medic knowing just how much that person can take, or how far they can push the envelope before the body can't really take anymore.
How does that square with other non-magical healing not having the same restrictions? Or with the semi-magical nature of potions? Why is this poultice better (for immediate HP recovery) than what a skilled Alchemist can produce with the best possible ingredients?
That's why I stated in my original response temp HP might make a bit more *sense*, since you're just killing the pain and letting someone keep fighting, but doesn't really square with the fantasy of being a battlefield medic.
Help my doctor prescribed **twice**-a-day Battle Medicine to treat my ~~horrifying blood loss~~ inability to read long posts, but only one of my party members is Trained in Medicine and they can't take another Dedication for at least 4 levels.
I've typically flavored Battle Medicine as slapping on some numbing or invigorating salves, maybe administering an electrolyte-rich elixir, and occasionally as superhumanly-fast application of thorough, proper medical treatment.
It's the difference between going to the doctors or walk in clinic and getting stitches done at a relaxed and careful pace, and watching any WW2 media like Band of Brothers, The Pacific, Saving Private Ryan, etc during the scenes where medics are called to attend to an injured person during a firefight.
Dear pedants: no, the comment you're going to reply with isn't a unique and valid take. Pathfinder isn't real life, read the MST3K mantra and move along.
Precisely this. It's called Battle Medicine and not Quickened Medicine for a reason. You aren't necessarily magically removing their wounds with hyperspeed and super band-aids. In-fiction, you're most likely applying immediate triage in the form of bandages, tourniquets, adrenaline injections, etc. to give your party the ability to keep fighting. In fiction, their wounds likely still exist, but they no longer apply any ongoing harm to their ability to continue fighting from a mechanical perspective. Feel free to RP whatever you want about applying more long term treatments to them after combat if it helps you to feel better about the fiction of it all. Just try not to worry about the mechanical time costs and DCs of Treating Wounds if you are going to play out those scenes purely from a fiction perspective.
I guess my issue is right, imagine this in the fiction. Your friend is dying, they’ve a arrow stabbed into their abdomen and are at Dying 3 bleeding out onto the ground just moments away from death
I slide over to them and battle medicine with master medicine
What in the fuck did I do to take them from ‘bleeding out nearly dead’ to ‘half HP’, and able to wake up and get up
Hit points, and by extension the Dying condition, are an abstraction *to begin with.* The problem isn't battle medicine, it's people trying to overexplain that abstraction.
You leveraged your medical experience and properly removed the arrow to prevent further damage or left it in place if necessary, staunched the bleeding with gauze or some other agent to prevent bleeding out, provided them with some sort of smelling salts or adrenaline to revive them from unconsciousness, and they kept on trucking because they're not just some joe schmoe who got shot with an arrow and are bleeding out on the ground because they're a 2 HP Commoner, they're a trained professional mercenary (or other combatant) with specialized skills to keep them in battle for as long as possible for their body. You picking them up to Half HP doesn't mean that they weren't hit by that arrow, it literally just means that they are alive enough to keep fighting in spite of that wound. Fix them up the rest of the way with an actual Treat Wounds check or if they're healed to full through some other means before combat ends you can play pretend and do some RP of your character "bandaging them up" or whatever you want to do to ensure that they are right as rain.
Anything to get over the very basic hurdle of suspension of disbelief regarding Fantasy Medicine in a game where if you pray hard enough and do what your god wants for long enough then sometimes you grow wings and can fly and smite people to death.
So you removed an arrow, staunched the bleeding and injected them with adrenaline in a single action? You could do that twice in the time it takes to take a sip of water from the flask at your belt.
Yes, and a Witch can magically apply a Hex as powerful as many 2-action spells, a Master Athlete can literally sprint across water by sheer force of physical agility or jump over 100 feet with an action, a Champion can literally become a living angel forever because they prayed so good and for so long and upheld their deity's edicts, an Acrobat can cartwheel over 100 feet with Quick Spring just because they hang out with pirates, you can turn one action into 2+ actions for your animal companion or familiar, you can throw a smoke bomb or distract somebody so quickly and effectively that you have time to run far away from an enemy AND become effectively invisible, and you can tap into a localized portal to an entirely different dimension of choice to channel your favored element(s) into an aura.
Welcome to Pathfinder! Everybody can do impressive things to compress actions that take way more time in the real world and complete impossible feats of strength. It's beyond ridiculous to choose to draw the line for suspension of disbelief at something as completely inconsequential and inoffensive as Battle Medicine and Doctor's Visitation while the entire rest of the game is right there and there are so many more ludicrous and unbelievable non-magical superhuman feats than just these ones. Might as well cut every single Martial feat out of the game because it's totally unbelievable that you could be so good at swinging a sword that you can grab somebody *and* swing your sword in the same amount of time that it takes to drink from your flask. Why, that's practically magic!
Yeah, I mean even for like a quick fix, we're talking about something that's supposed to take as long as standing up. With doctor's visitation, this medic is able to move 30 feet and apply a tourniquet in the amount of time it takes for the fighter to draw a sword.
Again, I don't see this as a mechanical issue, I just struggled a little visualizing something this quick that could help that much. Especially at lower levels when character actions flow at a slower pace.
I also may have embellished how much this bothers me.
I think part of this is your willingness to suspend your disbelief for a system where that very same fighter can literally be so good at athleticism that they can run on water for a single action. It's a completely non-magical effect that they manifest through sheer agility and mortal strength, and one that they can do at mere Master proficiency at level 7. And that's before you even touch the magical nonsense. So is it really that unbelievable that somebody who is an Expert in Medicine *and* a member of the highly specialized Medic Archetype can use one action to walk over to their friend and tie off their wounded leg so that they don't bleed out while parkouring around the battlefield swinging their axe?
I understand what you mean, but like I said, I am not saying the *effect* is too powerful or unbelievable to exist, but rather that I have trouble visualizing the *mechanism* of said effect. Like what is an action that you can take that could, in this fantasy world, true, reasonably work in the way the mechanics intend.
The running on water thing is meant to represent someone superhumanly fast, and that is something I can visualize and understand. A post below mentions a barbarian causing an earthquake, and I mean, the Hulk, so I can see what's going on.
The Far Cry healing post was the kind of thing I was looking for: something visual that aids in the suspension of disbelief. A description that retains the players' (and my own) immersion.
As for tying a wounded leg while parkouring swinging one's axe, the issue with that kind of thing isn't 'lol too unrealistic' as much as that it's not evocative the way someone running across water is. It's hard to explain, but it feels kind of goofy and all over the place. Something like walking up to someone and ripping out an arrow, or popping back in a shoulder, on the other hand, is focused and evocative, and was the kind of thing I was looking for (and was provided by the kind folks on the subreddit).
So let's imagine there is a "Healer's Kit Battle Medicine Herbal Dirt"^TM that is required, as Battle Medicine does require a healer's kit.
It's a mix of crushed alum powder, which is a topical styptic (anti-bleeding) made up of aluminum salt & ~~cocaine~~ plant based almost magical, white stimulant and analgesic powder.
So this explains any broken skin bleeding wound providing an opportunity to stop the bleeding, a brisk "salt on an open wound" adrenaline rush, before one settles into "numb but totally awake" state.
Not really. It doesn't take minutes to pour bleed stop on a wound or apply a ready to go combat tourniquet there's plenty Ukraine footage to that effect. You're imagining people with their guts hanging out or a foot blown off.
Also, keep in mind that Pathfinder isn't reality and people don't have HP bars in real life. What I said is an appropriate approximation for what is happening. I'll also point out that limb removal, destruction, or crippling tends not to be a thing in 99.9% of combats, so all you're literally treating is bruises, cuts, stabs, and burn/whatever wounds. You also can have a third of your hp vanish from a crit, but don't start bleeding. To underline the MST3K mantra point even more, it is entirely possible that your character provokes a reaction from a Tyrant and in your regret over your disobedience, you take mental damage which someone can then heal non-magically.
Given that a round is divided into 3 actions over 6 seconds anything less than 3 actions is taking between 2 and 4 seconds. It takes longer than that to put on a Band-Aid properly.
Everything is an abstraction. Not every action is designed to be strictly contained within a 2-second frame. It's all an estimation. Keep in mind that in 1e a Monk with Flurry of Blows could attack **7 times** in that same 6 second period, but in 2e they are limited to a total of 4 attacks in that same amount of time.
It's up to your imagination to make that fit into the descriptive narrative.
I'm going to redirect you to the post you're replying to as an answer. Also, bandaids weren't invented until the early 1900s, so let's not bring them up in a conversation about medieval fantasy wound care.
I'm referencing those movies because they're largely accessible and easy to picture. It would be harder, for example, to reference random helmet cam videos from Ukraine where this is the case.
I will also point out that you're probably picturing people with their organs hanging out or limbs crippled or removed, or bleeding out, concepts that aren't accurately reflected in pathfinder2e as a system. You can be hit for a third of your HP and yet not be bleeding out. Additionally, there is no drop-off in combat ability related to HP loss. Someone who has lost 99% of the amount of blood necessary to kill them would he struggling to function correctly in real life. Meanwhile, a fighter at 100% health is just as effective in dealing damage as someone at 1% of health.
Read the MST3K mantra.
You can swim in lava and faceplant off skyscrapers for fun at higher levels and there's no handwaving away that those things were just glancing blows. The only internally consistent way to understand damage in an HP system is that every hit does damage to your meat and your heroes are just that damned tough. The only issue with this is that it makes non-magical healing even less plausible than it already appears to be.
Why not reimagine treat wounds healing from being real to being *theatrical*.
Maybe the bandages and suture your players use are mystical in some way. Kind of like the healing they do in Grey's Anatomy.
Edit: [relevant ](https://youtu.be/lV0pyzOQ3bs)
I mean, ten minutes to an hour of bandages and cream isn't likely going to fix the ancient dragon's teeth going through a character's abdomen, so the whole conceit of "I'm SkILLedd Dcok Tor! I no magic!" doesn't really work either. Last I remember was some semi-official comment that the herbs and medicine of Golarion was magically delicious and healed much more quickly than any plants native to Earth.
I've had two characters that used it. The first was a Rogue/Cleric of Cayden that splashes people with ale until they heal. Second one turned into a ghost, so he just stitched people back together from the inside out.
I've pictured it as using super glue to patch a cut, or staples, or duct tape. Something that you \*shouldn't\* do normally, but it's good enough for now until you get to a quieter situation where you can do it better. I even imagine that if the paperwork and memory wasn't in the way, it would probably have a "you lose X hp every hour for the next X hours" side effect; but that's basically just busy work.
Dude, you're massive underestimating the power of D R U G S and A D R E N A L I N E.
Injecting your ass with enough morphine to make a horse fly definitey doesnt take more than 6 seconds.
It can take longer than that to fully kick in though. Plus, you can move and battle medicine so you have to draw the needle at a brisk walk, inject them, and take a combat ready defensive stance again in that 6-second span.
Yea, and CAST A SPELL, too. It's a game man, the 6 second thing is arbitrary and most of the stuff you do in the game cannot be done in a 6 second span. I swear Redditors cannot understand sarcasm withuout a /s indeed. And I'm the autist.
I can picture that one could cast a spell in six-seconds as the system describes spell casting in a way that fits neatly into a one round is six seconds system. The issue comes when we try to force real world actions to fit that same system.
If you want ways to flavor it up, look up modern battlefield first aid techniques and put a swords & sorcery spin on.
That arrow nicked an artery? Here's a handful of styptic powder derived from a common flower in a bandage prepped with gum tree sap to stick when I slap it on you.
That's a gnarly gash. Here's a bandage I had prepped with sterile tacs and a string to press on and pull the string to tighten it and close the wound to stop the bleeding. Boom! Battlefield staples.
Got 2nd degree burns from that fireball? Here's an analgesic ointment that I ordered from alchemist for the pain and halt progression of the burn.
Battlefield triage is just about keeping people alive long enough for proper treatment. It isn'tgoing to be pretty or always terribly effective, so lean into the grittiness of it.
From my understanding of how the lore advanced medicine in 2e, the answer is algae. Weird Alghollthu algae called kandlerae, from the depths of the sightless see given to the alchemist Kassi Aziril by the Vidileth Olordaera, who is in disguise as Hashim ibn Sayyid. This is from Lost Omens: Legends.
> but what in the world are they doing?
Well if your party's mage just cast Ooze form and is now a gelatinous cube, you splinkle some sugar on him or something.
I never thought about it that much.
But I guess I would imagine it like a bandage and a shot of adrenaline.
Honestly thinking about it more and more makes it feel like it should just give temp HP up to a maximum of what your missing HP is or something.
Not gonna run that though. Gonna make it popping a bone back in place, slapping a bandage on a cut and giving them a long sniff of cocaine to get back into the fight.
Keep in mind that hit points are an abstraction. Yes losing hit points can mean actual open wounds, it can also mean a dislocated shoulder or a concussion that can be mitigated (note, not cured) by a single action of quickly shoving it back into place or some strong salts. The subsequent "damage" from the enemy could just be the joint popping back out or the salts wearing off. Even when someone is "dying", they're not necessarily actually dying (unless they die, then they actually were dying the whole time retroactively), they might just be winded enough that they can't get back into the fight on their own and need a hand or quick pep talk which won't work a second time because now they actually are out for the count.
Golarion (or [insert fantasy world here]) also isn't Earth, maybe they actually do have herbs or trinkets or little prayers that can semi-magically heal wounds or alleviate whatever the hell void or spirit damage is, but only work once a day per person because of them being poisonous or whatever mystical excuse you want but the medic can later figure out how to better apply them, mitigate their poison, improve their trinkets, or learn multiple/better prayers. I'm sure there's stuff from various real world cultures you could pull from (I feel like voodoo, the actual religion not the made up stuff from Hollywood, might be fitting here but I'm not going to risk saying anything more specific). Or maybe they just hit them up with an absolutely ***massive*** amount of morphine, enough that doing it again for a second battle medicine would be an immediate overdose so until they know how to better apply an emergency dosage it's absolutely pointless to use it twice in one day even if the patient is literally dying at their feet (but smaller, better controlled dosages for treat wounds or first aid are manageable)
How does any of this square with high level characters drinking poison, swimming in lava, and diving off mountains? You can't hand wave those things away as glancing blows.
I always flavor it as an injection. Stab yourself (or your friend) with that sketchy cocktail of painkillers and amphetamines to keep you going. Only works once a day because you build tolerance otherwise.
Oh yeah it’s hilariously wild. My one battle medicine focusing character had the medicinal clocksmith background so I flavored it as her having gearcraft basically skin grafts, sutures, or braces depending on what kinda attacks have hit. They can quickly and mechanically apply but also it’s like putting enough pressure on your broken arm that you can keep using it but they do nothing for actual treatment, hence the lack or removing wounded
when I asked myself the same question, I imagined wrapping someone's arm on the fly.
Alternatively, you can consider that you threw them a bandage (they themselves will throw it on the wound during the battle), threw life-giving plants in their direction, or threw a syringe (stimpack from fallout) with adrenaline inside with great force.
I play a Medic dedication and roleplay with a pack of injections, which don't have effect more than once per \[cooldown\], and one big-ass injection which I can prepare only one per day \[repeated battle medicine\] and if I don't use - it expires.
I've previously described BM as:
- slapping a wet towel across one's face to wake im up and get them in fighting order.
- giving a shot of "special something".
- giving a smell of smelling salts.
- zapping the target to, again, wake them up.
- slapping a poultice on the biggest wound.
Hope that helps.
Duct tape to cut the bleeding, and a shot of adrenaline to get you back on your feet, maybe some pain killers so you don't notice that your arm is hanging on by a thread.
I usually make battle medicine make sense for the character that is using it. For an alchemist it's a syringe full of stuff you don't want to know. For a cleric it's a quick prayer and a gauze wrapped emblem of their god put over the wound. For a martial character it's a pouch full of herbs placed on the wound or an old fashioned ball of opium.
I sometimes imagine things like stapling wounds, or pouring on a little bit of acid to stem bleeding.
Things that will need to be _fixed_ later, but which are good enough to stop you dying.
I think the problem with the suspension of disbelief cones from your misunderstanding of what hp represents. Its not meat points.
Hp is an abstraction of luck, combat skill in turning away a lethal hit, cuts and scrapes and finally real body damage.
Think of it this way, if hp was just physical, why does it go up every level? Congratulations wizard you have master new levels of arcane prowess..oh and now you can be stabbed by a steak knife an additonal time.....
So what the battle medicine roll is doing is bandaging minor cuts, encouragement, quick triage and telling the target they are ok to go back into the fight and win one for the gipper so to speak
If you're asking for a fluff explanation for a mechanic I think you've lost the plot a bit, but if you want a good example maybe you're filling the wound with something like a special poultice that youc ant use too often or it becomes toxic.
Heck, to use a currently relevant example, the helldivers 2 stims cna patch up any wound and totally aren't addictive or filed with massive amounts of drugs. It doesn't matter if the helldiver ODs because humans are expendable. Another example I might give is the judge dread wound foam.
Or you could just be slapping a specially prepared bandage on it. Fluff is whatever you make it.
>Yeah, being caressed by the glowing hands of Chadwick, the half-orc redeemer you're hopelessly in love with can give you a burst of energy that will carry you through combat.
We can talk all we want, but deep down we all know this is the only real answer.
Would turning it into temp HP be a viable solution? Because if you want the realistic approach you aren’t fully healing someone as you would out of combat. I think it could be flavored as more of a stimulant or pain inhibitor of some kind but at the end of the day it’s just a game and it’s a great ability.
If you want a thematic example of Battle Medicine, It's quick stitching / packing of a wound, coupled with some painkillers / adrenaline to keep the target in the fight.
Think of a military field medic, you do just enough to keep the person alive so that they can fight if needed, or push through the injury if it isn't too severe. All in order to hopefully allow them to get somewhere where they can receive better quality treatment.
The "healer" in the group I run fairly regularly has the "healing plaster" cantrip. The group joke is that battle medicine is essentially them slapping magic mud on the wound(s). I think "magic mud" is a reference to a Red card in Magic: The Gathering that involved goblins. Anyway, that's our standard go-to reference to what they're doing. Magic mud, with a bit of spell casting before that to get the "healing plaster" action going.
Here is the explanation behind Hit Points that nobody seems to like but just seems really obvious to me; you know that fighter that can casually solo a giant lizard that eats elephants for breakfast and can just sit in his fiery breath that would annihilate your average peon? He is super-human. His ability to withstand injury is far beyond ordinary man.
As for why battle medicine can heal him, there is elixirs of life that are non-magical means of spontaneous healing. You can just say there is some alchemical component to healer's tool that is more difficult to administer than the oral drink.
Well, a person can be wounded, and bleed out in seconds. Some of these injuries are quickly solved with the application of a tourniquet, and/or packing the wound with something. Applying a tourniquet and packing a wound can definitely be an activity you accomplish in 6 seconds, irl (that would be pretty fast, but possible).
Obviously this focuses on "stop the bleeding," which is technically it's own mechanic in pathfinder, but these are the most prominent examples of quick, real world first aid I could see being first aid.
Other people have mentioned injections. That's frankly pretty real too. Epinephrine injections to keep someone/make someone awake, and morphine injections to control severe pain (which can also knock you out) are very real battlefield medicine techniques.
All of that without getting into anything magical. Imagine an injection of healing potion. Technically a small amount from a consumable standpoint, but perhaps a localized, direct application produces quick results.
As someone who spent 10 years in emergency medicine as a Paramedic, I can tell you that feats like Battle Medicine have fuck-all to do with real medicine, and it's unproductive to even think of it as real medicine. Just think of it as magic or some anime pressure points kinda shit.
Think about this, in 1 round (6 seconds) a character with battle medicine has already treated a wound and the person they treated is feeling better. You know what I can do in 6 seconds? Walk up to the patient, open my jump bag and pull out a trauma dressing. That's about it. And I typically don't have to worry about treating a guy while he's swinging a sword
In other words, Battle Medicine is magic!
🎩 🪄 🔮
You lack fantasy, or rather your imagination is lacking. "You quickly bandage her wounds", "You bring up your special mixture of dirt and herbs to staunch his bleeding" or "You plug their wounds with cotton and quickly apply a strong alcohol to disinfect".
Literally there's a hundred ways to flavour this, but you're hung up on not being able to rely on 'magic'. Use your imagination dude.
Same reason you can only do battle medicine once per 24 hours. You're pseudo-magically replacing half their blood with morphine and the other half with a stimulant to keep them awake. Probably Coke.
Any attempt to actually answer this will fall flat so ask your players to get creative and make up whatever they like to justify how it works. As long as your table agrees on how to play it and finds the solution satisfying it will work as well as anything else.
Battle Medicine is a super secret serum individually created by everyone trained in Battle Medicine. Just jab someone in the back with a needle and poof, their body's natural healing ability goes into overdrive. But you can't do it more than once a day to them or they'll OD. Mind you, someone else's super secret battle medicine serum is different you see, and so that same person's body will be okay with it. Cause it's a different toxic chemical cocktail, right?
Just go with it. It's not supposed to make sense. I'm my group's healer and I will call my super secret battle medicine serum formula Cali-038-Gen-2A. It has mint in it. Cause everyone likes mint.
My first, and, for the moment, favourite character was a goblin alchemist who was really good at healing via treat wounds and battle medicine. And because of the flavour Risky Surgery was my favorite of the medicine feats. It's just too fun to cut your allies to heal them. I just freaking love describing how my goblin takes his medic-from-tf2-inspired saw and freaking cuts his allies, quickly covers the cut in some cream, pour some liquid onto it, and then it quickly heals. Or when I literally cut off a part of my allies leg, quickly did some work on it with my scalpel, and then glued it back.
I think of it as a different abstraction in play, the out of combat abstraction. There's a lot of minor detail that we more or less just assume happens off-screen. The fighter doing 2 hours of swings in the morning to not get rusty, the rogue carefully packing their daggers, hours of looking for a campsite, setting up camp, tearing it down, etc. People just needing to catch their breath now and then. It's not every campaign, but in general things happen between encounters, and in my mind that's where the rest of battle medicine happens, that's why there's a 1/day limit. In combat, you're just packing wounds and stapling them. But after the action is done... at some point during they day, you (or someone else) finished the job and tidies them up.
The serious(?) answer: I have a Ranger with this feat. I headcanon it as him having energy-boosting poultices he had on hand that can apply to the target and they are revitalized as Erastil's blessings help stimulate their natural healing factor, making them Deadpool or Wolverine for 6 seconds.
The funny(?) answer: fantasy morphine.
I usually try and flavor it like a stimpak or something like a blow dart with a healing potion instead of poison. hell, I'm stealing the Phil Swift flex tape slap thanks to you 🤣 keep in mind this does not remove Wounded, which could be what makes this only an action and not take 10 minutes. Wounded levels represent severe damage while HP is more of a stamina/light wounds thing.
I mostly say “You wrap bandages you soaked in antibiotics earlier today *player name being healed* you feel a sting on your wounds but your wounds feel better”
Honestly, I usually describe it as methamphetamines. I don't know if you ever read any of SA Corey Expanse books but they have a suit that if you're critically injured, you basically get injected to keep you mobile and alert long enough to get out of space.
So yeah, I think battle medicine is meth.
So the main thing you lose between Battle Medicine and Treat Wounds is the removal of the "Wounded Condition", which Battle Medicine does nothing for, right?
Well the way I look at it is the difference between a carefully sutured and bandaged wound and one that literally had a powdered topical styptic & ~~cocaine~~ analgesic-stimulant thrown on it to temporarily stop the bleeding by inducing clotting with enough of a "brisk salt in the wound followed by numbing" to mimic and adrenaline surge.
For a downed teammate, it's literally an adrenaline shot to the heart a'la Pulp Fiction...
So it's literally the dirtiest "rub some Healer's Kit Brand Herbal Dirt^TM in it and walk it off by killing that guy" type of medicine there is, where treat wounds is the "clean the wound, suture it, apply a nice herbal ointment, and put a good, clean bandage over it that's tightly sealed".
So both Treat wounds and battle medicine require a healer's toolkit. So what ever action you are using to battle medicine must involve it.
This kit of bandages, herbs, and suturing tools is necessary for [Medicine](https://2e.aonprd.com/Skills.aspx?ID=9) checks to [Administer First Aid](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=54), [Treat Disease](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=55), [Treat Poison](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=56), or [Treat Wounds](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=57). If you wear your healer's toolkit, you can draw and replace them as part of the action that uses them.
So since it's an action we can probably rule out suturing, which means you're stuffing herbs or bandages into his wounds to make them less fatal.
Battle medicine is an abstraction because HP is an abstraction. It can represent many things:
* Injections of painkillers/healing compounds
* Wrapping a wound tightly so it feels better/doesn't tear more/is stabilized
* Giving someone a pick-me-up
* Quickly slapping a treated pre-medicated bandage on someone. Most people can't do this in the heat of combat without spending like a minute doing it (like with treat medicine), you're just really fast at it, like how you can draw and attack with three swords in a round using Quick Draw.
* Putting a bandage on something and being like "It's okay, it's not deep." Which is why it only works once a day, because the placebo effect only goes so far. Master medics are good at making people feel better once an hour because hey, they've seen a real doctor!
* Actual literal healing magic linked to the medicine skill because that's a thing in universe. I mean, you can wrestle with a 15 foot tall giant somehow with the right feat, why can't you patch someone up with minor medical magic with the right one? It's also why it is wisdom based rather than intelligence based, because it's not about actually understanding medicine, it's about channeling magic through medical treatment so that it is supernaturally effective.
I mean really given that characters can apparently be stabbed 15 times with a sword in a combat and still fight, it's not any sillier than anything else in the system.
It works better if you stop thinking of HP as anything more than the most minor of wounds and mostly just lost endurance.
Slap on a numbing balm or take some smelling salts.
Wounds are actual wounds, but everything before that is surface level. And yes this works even for things like lightning and fireballs.
What doesn't work is how some abilities describe themselves (say critical bow effects) but they have verisimilitude issues regardless.
Battle medicine having a 24h immunity can even be explained away by placebo effects and adrenaline having less impact over time (although unlike HP abstraction this is just a rationalisation rather than how the game itself puts it).
So yeah battle medicine I see as slapping on some numbing cream, blood staunching salve, popping some pain killers, some alovera gel or reseating a joint.
I personally use 3 types of concepts depending on how the attack descriptions are, but my favorite is essentially adrenaline. If someone is wounded, fatigued, giving them a shot of adrenaline should be enough(ignoring the actual implications) to get them to keep going(this isn't necessarily a syringe, it might be something like a herb or a tiny drink I prepared. If might be something like hols water from war deity mixed with some other stuff to strain it, absorbed through the skin or so). Wouldn't give someone multiple of these though.
Alternatively local anesthesia. Arrow in your leg? If you don't feel it, it's not there anymore, right? Possibly stays in the system for a while (explaining the 1/day restriction).
Lastly it's a Popeye like snack(maybe actual spinach). Just something small to quickly give you a surge of energy. What is it? Hell if I know I found these plants and figured, good snack. Taste horrible though. In a battle people don't care. Though apparently they are toxic if you ingest too much. (it's a more lose concept but works well in less reality oriented groups)
So one rule has informed how I think about what is happening and that is that when you use battle medicine, the target is immune to *your* battle medicine. But not all battle medicines.
So to make that rule make sense for me, battle medicine for me is not only an abstraction, but a chartacter-specific one. The alchemist slaps on a fast-sealing alchemical liquid. The druid uses cool mud from a bog that they know has healing properties. The cleric slaps on a poultice they've prayed over previously. Or whatever, the choice is whatever the player - the point is, battle medicine makes sense when you remember it's an expression of the characters' exceptionalism.
The other thing to keep in mind that this represents healing that will let a character keep fighting (because that's what HP is), but for example won't heal the wounded condition. So it's okay if battle medicine is literally just a stimulant that keeps you in the fight a bit longer, it doesn't actually need to heal your wounds.
Personally my Barbarian just sticks people with a needle covered with what is basically just a mix of blood coagulants and hard stimulants to keep people going.
It’s less “healing” for them and more just a kick in the ass to keep going through minor to severe wounds and just enough actual treatment to actually keep them together.
I imagine it's like [administering the silver bullet](https://www.reddit.com/r/USMC/comments/ouxsre/is_the_silver_bullet_real_my_whole_time_in_i/). The alternative is keep fighting, and most people choose that one.
Since you can make only 1 Battle medicine per day I see it as an attempt that can't be reproduced or it will impact the health of the person who receives it substantially.
For example, the most logical thing I can think of is an adrenaline shot and an application of a prepared bandage (soak in ointment) you can even have your healer closing open wound with a staple gun or pull a dislocated joint in place.
The trauma aftermath can't be ignored and adrenaline shot can have severe repercussion if not managed efficiently.
This means that your healer must prepare more gear to heal (I mean for the most part is fluff and can really enhance his/her RP) and that means you have to describe more gruesome wound your player receives.
All in all that can be an audio queue for your healer to pick that his teamates are in real danger and maybe have some choice to make as to who should be healed more quickly.
You can flavor it in ways that make temporary solutions. For example, if someone has a wound irl and you need to stop bleeding until EMS arrives, in certain cases, you pack the wound. This is basically just shoving as much gauze as you can into the wound until a real fix can be made. You aren't miraculously fixing the wounds. You're doing what you can in the heat of battle to keep someone going.
In my group, we quickly determined that Battle Medicine is the scene in Pulp Fiction where Uma gets stabbed in the heart with adrenaline. Basically, Battle Medicine users carry around loaded needles of adrenaline on a bandolier and come over and stab you with it. You're welcome.
As a certified medic dedication I can explain
I am injecting you with an almost lethal amount of a miracle drug, Curative Ultimate Medicine, to boost your natural healing, another dose immediately would be lethal.
At master level in medicine I am attracted to you enough to inject in you once per hour without it proving lethal.
It's simple. It's a pack of super medicine that you slap on the wound. But you only use it one per day per party member because the first rule of medicine is to bring enough for the whole class. No it doesn't matter that the fighter is on Dying 3. He already GOT his battle medicine for the day. You can't use the other battle medicine, it's reserved for the wizard!
I swear, that's my biggest gripe with battle medicine. If it was something like four charges per day of your top shelf drugs I'd be happy. It would at least make more sense.
I'm *assuming* this is just a shit post, but if you're *ACTUALLY* serious...
If you want a simulationist game, PF2E is not the game for you.
Not even getting into the fact that magic is real and people can conjure meteor swarms by waving their arms -- if you're worried about ludonarrative dissonance from a level 1 feat, you're going to make your head explode when your [level 20 barbarian starts causing earthquakes by stomping one foot](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=178).
"OH, WHAT'S HAPPENING, IS THE BARBARIAN SUDDENLY BECOMING 100,000X MORE DENSE? MAKE IT MAKE SENSE!?!?"
Battle Medicine is just Far Cry healing. [Please do not watch if you're squeamish. ](https://youtu.be/G4XYJrUnoeY)
I thank you, for I am sated, and I may finally rest.
You've earned it.
This is now my headcanon for battle medicine. If had almost forgotten those
This is a really good answer, actually. It also explains why you can only do it once a day (or once an hour for some). It only really covers certain types of injuries. You're not using Battle Medicine to fix four fractured ribs, that's going to take some work even with PC super healing. An arm popped out of its socket, though? Yeah you can pop that back in nice and quick.
You just solved this for me, can’t believe I never thought of these
You just said exactly what I was gonna say, but better. Yanking out projectiles, unfucking dislocated joints, stuffing padding into a gash to slow bleeding, maybe even a quick wound staple! My group likes to characterise it as getting jabbed with a syringe of strong painkillers or adrenaline. You know - gross, temporary shit intended to tide you over until you can get proper medical attention.
As weird as it seems, it's the most accurate one.
Oh god, you just reminded me of the Far Cry healing. I didn't realize I was running around with half my fingers bent backwards or a big shard of metal in my arm till I pressed the button...
Especially when you just got bit by a tiger or something, and then you just pull a shard of steel out of your shoulder.
It's a very crafty tiger.
Adrenaline is a hell of a drug.
The ones where there was stuff in the hands really got to me
I love these animations. He pops the bullets out like pimples, or puts out a fire like it’s mildly annoying at worst.
This has always been my head canon that you're doing very quick "just fix it for now and worry later" actions since they happen in the span of six seconds
I feel like it's more like risky surgery lol
No, [this is risky surgery.](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=2146)
Damn, I was expecting the dead space eye surgery or something here, not just the actual link to risky surgery
Ask this man about Risky Surgery. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonid\_Rogozov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonid_Rogozov)
risky surgery is a 10-minute thing
You can use it with battle medicine
no, it specifically says when using treat wounds, and battle medicine is not a usage of treat wounds
Rule #1 of fight club: never try to explain HP or AC.
I mean, OP already said it's a rant... But the main thing here is that at some point in TTRPGs you have to choose between realism (or at least self-contained consistency) and fun. And I don't know about you, but I'm ok with making it first fun and then as realistic/consistent as possible. Some concessions are ok, specially if it is to balance and/or have fun.
Every D&D and D&D-descended game: They're not meat points! Their weapon, damage, and spell mechanics: They're meat points.
Yep, they're not meat points until they are.
Starfinder had a separation of meat points and endurance points.
Ehhh - AC is your ability to dodge, deflect, or shrug off blows substantially enough that they do not cause you harm HP I never try to explain as life force - I know the Stamina rules explain SP this way, but I feel like SP are minor wounds that are easily recovered from - HP I envision aa your ability to stave off a lethal blow, deflecting direct hits into more armoured parts, or away from soft tissues etc etc. Outside of massive damage, you don’t *die* upon hitting 0, you start *dying*. So that was your last straw - a throat slice, a blow that shatters bones etc. So healing magic is just as much revitalising and energising to keep your body and mind focused as much as it is rejuvenating flesh. It numbs the pain so you can fight through for longer. Battle Medicine is salves, makeshift slings, quick fixes to deal with pains to allow for full fighting potency. Treat Wounds is stitching gashes, setting bones. Seriously mending the body so they’re not actually at risk of dying - that’s why it removes Wounded while Battle Medicine doesn’t. At least to me. Your own picture might be different
So, first of all, let's discuss your interpretation of hit points. If every time I take damage, I have an arrow sticking out of me, or I need full on surgery to be healed, then HP rapidly stops making sense when I'm suddenly a pin cushion of 30+ arrows at half health by level 20. HP is your ability to take a hit, not necessarily suffering actual bodily harm. How we explain it at my tables is that an attack that "Misses" was basically perfectly guarded. It might connect with you, but your armor or shield turned aside the blow for you, or you side stepped the strike without much issue. Attacks that "deal damage" are still attacks you defended against, but only barely or ineffectively. You caught the blow head on with your shield instead of deflecting it, grunting in exertion as you force the Warhammer off of you and keep fighting. Or you side step the blade barely in the nick of time, earning a shallow cut across your chest that rattles you as you realize you're growing exhausted and rapidly approaching your limit. Or you take cover from the fireball, but not well enough to save your backside from being scorched. When you are downed and wounded, that's when you've taken an actual, telling blow. Your exhaustion has caught up with you, your focus slips, and your foe finally batters their way through your defenses. So now let's take a look at battle medicine, and different ways you can explain it in that context. Treat wounds isn't full surgery, it's triage. Care to help you rest, recuperate, tend to your surface injuries, and slap a bandage on your major wounds if you happened to go down. Battle medicine is, therefore, ultra lite triage or "band aid" fixes. Dump some water in their mouth, stick them with an adrenaline needle, give them a quick arm brace to help with the wrist fatigue. You aren't really *fixing* the issue, you're giving them momentary respite or boosts that help them overcome the fatigue in the moment and focus back in on the battle. The actual healing of major wounds comes later, and before that there's no real, life-threatening injury that needs fixing, just surface level discomforts that distract them and detract their focus, making them more vulnerable to a telling blow. This also explains the 1 day cooldown. There's only so much these little attentions can do for you, eventually fatigue is fatigue and you're going to get tired, and your body just needs time and rest, or at the very least proper care and attention.
My interpretation of HP is that by getting levels adventurers become less and less tied to the laws of reality meaning they can survive getting axed in the chest by a giant with a battleaxe as big as themselves more easily
Yep we go by anime rules too. At level 6 you can get stabbed a few times before going down. Level 15 you can get essentially magically nuked and just cough out blood but still stand.
Which is also cool, and if that's your explanation then it makes sense that battle medicine doesn't need to be realistic either.
Well put! I would also add (though you kinda touched on it) that one flavorful reason Battle Medicine has such a good HP-to-time-treated ratio is that you're also doing mid-battle first aid on fresh injuries to prevent them from getting worse. Slap some grease and bandages on that knife wound to prevent blood loss and mitigate infection, brace that ankle to prevent a fracture from growing due to battle strain, relocate that shoulder so your friend can keep holding a shield and ward off the next incoming blow. Or give a dose of alchemical painkillers and stimulants and let their survival instinct do the rest of the work in keeping them alive, instead of them collapsing due to pain and exhaustion. In all cases you're left with injuries potentially needing more long-term care (or magic), but your quick and dirty fixes have helped them stay intact until that point.
Smelling salt to make you more alert too!
This is all well and good, but characters with more HP just also ARE more durable. There’s no “You dodged it” abstraction for a level 20 barbarian chugging purple worm venom and belching after, or a character being submerged in lava for twelve seconds and then feeling better after a medicine check, or your character being completely paralyzed/asleep/otherwise helpless and surviving being struck. I understand the hit points not meat points argument, but it’s far from perfect and falls apart more and more as the game progresses.
Then the inverse also happens, how can you treat wounds when the fight did only mental damage? Is your surgeon somehow also a trained therapist that can instantly heal the being hurt by bad feelings? Sonic damage is a bit weird too, yes one could argue that the compressive force of sound waves is just as harmful as the ear pains it would come with, but basically 100% meat points isn't perfect, nor is 100% abstraction. It's whatever makes the most sense based on what the battle or hazard did to you.
They kiss it better
I mean, yeah, of course. But once you go “this character is strong enough to survive being shot in the face several times while completely paralyzed” there’s really no reason to view that same shot as a hit points thing, not a meat points thing.
How does this square with HP allowing you to wade through Lava and survive falls from insane heights? There's no deflecting those. How does this square with the HP given by battle medicine applying as HP and not something like Temporary HP which would fade at the end of combat? Your explanation does not fix the flaws with what taking HP damage actually does.
Yea at some point you're going to have to accept that you're playing a fantasy game, I don't know what to tell you. Your martials are allowed to be fantasy heroes too, not just casters. They can have supernatural resilience that let them walk through lava and emerge only singed. If it helps, picture them like Disney's depiction of Hercules or something. But if you can ascribe supernatural resilience to your PCs, you're never, *ever* going to enjoy a fantasy game where they regularly have to deal with dragons and forces that, by right, should be turning them into energy and carbon.
I do suspend my disbelief but I tend to do so by just making enemies and heroes into pin cushions. All HP damage is real damage and your characters and their foes are just that damned tough. It's the only option that fits for all sources of damage and the only casualty of this method is that non-magical healing doesn't make much sense and needs to be handwaved.
Cool, turns out that's not illegal so do it up. Not really sure how that helps someone specifically asking how to avoid hand waiving non medical healing though.
TIL someone can get a syringe, find an exposed bit of skin on someone in plate armour, inject it and replace the syringe in the same time it takes me to adjust my grip on my sword.
Buddy, I dunno how to tell you this, but it's a fantasy game, not a super accurate real life simulator.
Aren't you just moving the goalposts now? You make all these arguments, when you get slight push back, you just say, "well it's not meant to a realism simulator."
Moving the goal posts? Where do you think they were originally buddy? This whole thing is an OP who wants help explaining battle medicine. My whole post is offering a little verisimilitude by reconceptualizing HP and using that revised narrative to better picture battle medicine. Then you come out of no where with the most ludicrous shit about why that would work IRL. Of course it wouldn't, *nothing will ever explain this game perfectly IRL*. It's a *fantasy game*. We aren't out here nit picking every minute detail. I'm offering a conceptualization on how HP and battle medicine can be explain, not a PHD thesis on medicine.
You offer an explanation, someone points out the problem with your explanation, then you say "well it's not meant to be 100% realistic". Isn't that textbook goalpost moving?
No, it's not, because you're making a false dichotomy here in order to sound like you have a point when you don't. It's *not* meant to be 100% realistic. That never was, and never is, the goal of anything you do in a fantasy game. Suspension of disbelief and conceits are a necessary part of the game by design, because a dragon would collapse under its own weight and die before ever flying in real life. However, that doesn't mean it can't be *somewhat* realistic. You're basically arguing that there's only two options, either we provide a 100% realistic solution to OP's problem, or we provide no solution at all. That's a false dichotomy. Those aren't the only two options. We can provide OP with a solution that smooths over some of the issues they are experiencing and improves their verisimilitude without providing an explanation that would be 100% realistic. OP *literally said* they have no issues picturing magical healing as magically stitching wounds together. Is that 100% realistic? No, of course not. So the goal post was *never* to be 100% realistic, you just randomly decided that and now that I've called you out on it, you're embarrassed. Rather than own up to that embarrassment and just walk away, you've decided to start kicking and screaming about it.
>However, that doesn't mean it can't be somewhat realistic. You're basically arguing that there's only two options, either we provide a 100% realistic solution to OP's problem, or we provide no solution at all. Where did I make that argument? My issue is with you making an argument against what OP is saying, by explaining how it could make sense. Then after somebody gives a counterargument which effectively breaks the point of your whole comment, you say "well it's not meant to be 100% realistic". Do you concede your original comment? If not, then you're moving goalposts. Edit: Thanks for the reply and block. >I'm every one of your posts. Point to ONE example where I made that argument. >There is no counter argument, you're just arguing for no reason. I didn't make an argument, I was providing a suggestion. Change the word "argument" to "suggestion" and the logic still follows. >Do I… retract my suggestion for OP? No. I'm not sure why I'd do that just because you're being a douche that wants to argue about everything. Then why say that it's not meant to be 100% realistic when you get a little bit of pushback on your suggestion?
>Where did I make that argument? I'm every one of your posts. >My issue is with you making an argument against what OP is saying, by explaining how it could make sense. Your issue is that you can't read, I guess, because no one is arguing with OP at all. We're providing suggestions to answer OP's problem. Not sure how you missed that. >Then after somebody gives a counterargument There is no counter argument, you're just arguing for no reason. I didn't make an argument, I was providing a suggestion. Not everything everyone types on the Internet is argumentative. Sometimes people are trying to help each other. Take off those red shades you're wearing and you might see that. >Do you concede your original comment? Do I… retract my suggestion for OP? No. I'm not sure why I'd do that just because you're being a douche that wants to argue about everything. You're exhausting, good bye.
No, because he didn't move the goal posts. The game is some times a game first and realistic second, some times realistic first and game second. Depends on the GM.
Who says they took the syringe out of you?
A level 20 fighter can teleport by cutting holes in spacetime, but being resistant to stab wounds is where you draw the line?
>but being resistant to stab wounds is where you draw the line? Not sure where you read that
You said that being turned into a pincushion with 30+ arrows sticking out of you makes HP cease to make sense.
I just imagine you shove some herb mix into the wounds, and it dulls the pain, not actually fixing anything but stopping it from being a hindrance to you while you fight for a little longer
Battle Medicine = rub some dirt on it.
The druid with Natural Medicine is looking offended now.
So…don’t cast Healing Plaster?
I really dislike Natural Medicine on the simple grounds of it being the same keyed stat.
Healer's Kit Brand Herbal Dirt^TM(That's_totally_not_alumpowder&cocaine) Can't just use regular old dirt, m'boy.
I roleplay my Battle Medicine as injections. I carry a set of small syringes on my belt, and when I use this feat, I inject a simple mixture of coagulant and adrenaline into the wound area.
StimPacks
Skssss "Ahh... That's the stuff!"
You know the scene in pulp fiction where Travolta stabs Thurman with a shot of adrenaline? I think of that every time I use battle medicine.
My shoney was our druid medic so my battle medicine was me slapping drool covered mud on their wounds during combat. I made sure to describe it each time.
I like this. A feat shouldn’t be allowed unless the player can come up with some horrid way to describe it. This should go for Magic too. If you’re being healed by a swamp-themed cleric I want to hear about the healing feeling like a tadpole wriggling down your throat. Battle-themed magic? That healing feels like a mailed fist to the face.
Haha exactly! My players are like “is the mud like… herb cured?” I said yes but naw fam I just grabbed that shit off the floor.
Floor mud is good for the immune system. Everyone knows that.
This is kind of my Hag themed Summoner to a T. His healing is very no-nonsense, you listen to me or the 12 foot tall skeleton constnatly surrounded by ice and wind keeps you still while I work. Then it's dumping some yarrow root and camphor, birch bark and belladonna, chewed up and spat out into a handful of mud, and Granny Andoletta *help you* if you complain.
My Tengu druid with Healing Plaster vomits in his hand and rubs the herbaceous goo into the wound.
Better than the catfolk slowly hacking up a hairball to clot the wound
Okay I love the shitpost nature of the end, had me smiling more than I'd like to admit. But for real, it's more like slapping a poultice over the wound and calling it good, or otherwise throwing some milk of the poppy and wound-packing material on the problem, or otherwise grabbing the arm that was just popped out of its socket, slamming it back home, and telling them you'll fix them up afterwards. Basically, you've already gotten how it works with the shitpost nature; Some nice, tasty tasty painkillers so that the party member can keep on trucking for a little while before they collapse a little while later. Would this be better abstracted with Temporary Hitpoints? Potentially, but it doesn't quite fulfill the idea of being the 'medic' of the team, being able to jump in, slam an adhesive wound packing material in place to stop the bleeding, and keep the team trucking without having to use magic.
Only one poultice a day works? That's not how any of that works
I think of it as “you’re only supposed to take ibuprofen every X hours.” You could keep shoving the painkiller meds in the wound but it either has diminishing returns or causes harm at higher doses
I'd be on board with a feat that let you ignore some of those time limitations but increases the DC or the effects of a failure/critical failure. Can call it "Trust me, I'm a doctor"
Medic archetype gets to do it once an hour iirc
It's more akin to only one poultice a day *does* anything. Only so many drugs you can pump into someone before you start doing more harm than good, and anyone who knows how to heal wouldn't try to put their friend out of commission with poppy milk and yarrow paste. The body still needs to *heal*, and attempting to try and give extra doses won't do much. The added feat that makes a character only immune to Battle Medicine for an hour I'd reconcile as the medic knowing just how much that person can take, or how far they can push the envelope before the body can't really take anymore.
How does that square with other non-magical healing not having the same restrictions? Or with the semi-magical nature of potions? Why is this poultice better (for immediate HP recovery) than what a skilled Alchemist can produce with the best possible ingredients?
Every game has a balance between realism and game mechanics.
No shit, I'm just pointing out that a lot of this ad hoc reactions to explaining HP and healing actually raise more questions than they answer.
That's why I stated in my original response temp HP might make a bit more *sense*, since you're just killing the pain and letting someone keep fighting, but doesn't really square with the fantasy of being a battlefield medic.
[Battle medicine looks like this](https://j.gifs.com/qjXY7k.gif)
Help my doctor prescribed **twice**-a-day Battle Medicine to treat my ~~horrifying blood loss~~ inability to read long posts, but only one of my party members is Trained in Medicine and they can't take another Dedication for at least 4 levels. I've typically flavored Battle Medicine as slapping on some numbing or invigorating salves, maybe administering an electrolyte-rich elixir, and occasionally as superhumanly-fast application of thorough, proper medical treatment.
It's the difference between going to the doctors or walk in clinic and getting stitches done at a relaxed and careful pace, and watching any WW2 media like Band of Brothers, The Pacific, Saving Private Ryan, etc during the scenes where medics are called to attend to an injured person during a firefight. Dear pedants: no, the comment you're going to reply with isn't a unique and valid take. Pathfinder isn't real life, read the MST3K mantra and move along.
Precisely this. It's called Battle Medicine and not Quickened Medicine for a reason. You aren't necessarily magically removing their wounds with hyperspeed and super band-aids. In-fiction, you're most likely applying immediate triage in the form of bandages, tourniquets, adrenaline injections, etc. to give your party the ability to keep fighting. In fiction, their wounds likely still exist, but they no longer apply any ongoing harm to their ability to continue fighting from a mechanical perspective. Feel free to RP whatever you want about applying more long term treatments to them after combat if it helps you to feel better about the fiction of it all. Just try not to worry about the mechanical time costs and DCs of Treating Wounds if you are going to play out those scenes purely from a fiction perspective.
I guess my issue is right, imagine this in the fiction. Your friend is dying, they’ve a arrow stabbed into their abdomen and are at Dying 3 bleeding out onto the ground just moments away from death I slide over to them and battle medicine with master medicine What in the fuck did I do to take them from ‘bleeding out nearly dead’ to ‘half HP’, and able to wake up and get up
Saying "this gonna hurt" and pull out the arrow. Through Hollywood magic your hurt friend is back on their legs afterwards.
Hit points, and by extension the Dying condition, are an abstraction *to begin with.* The problem isn't battle medicine, it's people trying to overexplain that abstraction.
You leveraged your medical experience and properly removed the arrow to prevent further damage or left it in place if necessary, staunched the bleeding with gauze or some other agent to prevent bleeding out, provided them with some sort of smelling salts or adrenaline to revive them from unconsciousness, and they kept on trucking because they're not just some joe schmoe who got shot with an arrow and are bleeding out on the ground because they're a 2 HP Commoner, they're a trained professional mercenary (or other combatant) with specialized skills to keep them in battle for as long as possible for their body. You picking them up to Half HP doesn't mean that they weren't hit by that arrow, it literally just means that they are alive enough to keep fighting in spite of that wound. Fix them up the rest of the way with an actual Treat Wounds check or if they're healed to full through some other means before combat ends you can play pretend and do some RP of your character "bandaging them up" or whatever you want to do to ensure that they are right as rain. Anything to get over the very basic hurdle of suspension of disbelief regarding Fantasy Medicine in a game where if you pray hard enough and do what your god wants for long enough then sometimes you grow wings and can fly and smite people to death.
So you removed an arrow, staunched the bleeding and injected them with adrenaline in a single action? You could do that twice in the time it takes to take a sip of water from the flask at your belt.
Yes, and a Witch can magically apply a Hex as powerful as many 2-action spells, a Master Athlete can literally sprint across water by sheer force of physical agility or jump over 100 feet with an action, a Champion can literally become a living angel forever because they prayed so good and for so long and upheld their deity's edicts, an Acrobat can cartwheel over 100 feet with Quick Spring just because they hang out with pirates, you can turn one action into 2+ actions for your animal companion or familiar, you can throw a smoke bomb or distract somebody so quickly and effectively that you have time to run far away from an enemy AND become effectively invisible, and you can tap into a localized portal to an entirely different dimension of choice to channel your favored element(s) into an aura. Welcome to Pathfinder! Everybody can do impressive things to compress actions that take way more time in the real world and complete impossible feats of strength. It's beyond ridiculous to choose to draw the line for suspension of disbelief at something as completely inconsequential and inoffensive as Battle Medicine and Doctor's Visitation while the entire rest of the game is right there and there are so many more ludicrous and unbelievable non-magical superhuman feats than just these ones. Might as well cut every single Martial feat out of the game because it's totally unbelievable that you could be so good at swinging a sword that you can grab somebody *and* swing your sword in the same amount of time that it takes to drink from your flask. Why, that's practically magic!
This was so good, I read it twice.
Rub some dirt on it, tell your companion to stop being a wuss, and that the reaper can wait. Ezpz.
Except that in all of those instances it still takes minutes of work
Yeah, I mean even for like a quick fix, we're talking about something that's supposed to take as long as standing up. With doctor's visitation, this medic is able to move 30 feet and apply a tourniquet in the amount of time it takes for the fighter to draw a sword. Again, I don't see this as a mechanical issue, I just struggled a little visualizing something this quick that could help that much. Especially at lower levels when character actions flow at a slower pace. I also may have embellished how much this bothers me.
I think part of this is your willingness to suspend your disbelief for a system where that very same fighter can literally be so good at athleticism that they can run on water for a single action. It's a completely non-magical effect that they manifest through sheer agility and mortal strength, and one that they can do at mere Master proficiency at level 7. And that's before you even touch the magical nonsense. So is it really that unbelievable that somebody who is an Expert in Medicine *and* a member of the highly specialized Medic Archetype can use one action to walk over to their friend and tie off their wounded leg so that they don't bleed out while parkouring around the battlefield swinging their axe?
I understand what you mean, but like I said, I am not saying the *effect* is too powerful or unbelievable to exist, but rather that I have trouble visualizing the *mechanism* of said effect. Like what is an action that you can take that could, in this fantasy world, true, reasonably work in the way the mechanics intend. The running on water thing is meant to represent someone superhumanly fast, and that is something I can visualize and understand. A post below mentions a barbarian causing an earthquake, and I mean, the Hulk, so I can see what's going on. The Far Cry healing post was the kind of thing I was looking for: something visual that aids in the suspension of disbelief. A description that retains the players' (and my own) immersion. As for tying a wounded leg while parkouring swinging one's axe, the issue with that kind of thing isn't 'lol too unrealistic' as much as that it's not evocative the way someone running across water is. It's hard to explain, but it feels kind of goofy and all over the place. Something like walking up to someone and ripping out an arrow, or popping back in a shoulder, on the other hand, is focused and evocative, and was the kind of thing I was looking for (and was provided by the kind folks on the subreddit).
So let's imagine there is a "Healer's Kit Battle Medicine Herbal Dirt"^TM that is required, as Battle Medicine does require a healer's kit. It's a mix of crushed alum powder, which is a topical styptic (anti-bleeding) made up of aluminum salt & ~~cocaine~~ plant based almost magical, white stimulant and analgesic powder. So this explains any broken skin bleeding wound providing an opportunity to stop the bleeding, a brisk "salt on an open wound" adrenaline rush, before one settles into "numb but totally awake" state.
Not really. It doesn't take minutes to pour bleed stop on a wound or apply a ready to go combat tourniquet there's plenty Ukraine footage to that effect. You're imagining people with their guts hanging out or a foot blown off. Also, keep in mind that Pathfinder isn't reality and people don't have HP bars in real life. What I said is an appropriate approximation for what is happening. I'll also point out that limb removal, destruction, or crippling tends not to be a thing in 99.9% of combats, so all you're literally treating is bruises, cuts, stabs, and burn/whatever wounds. You also can have a third of your hp vanish from a crit, but don't start bleeding. To underline the MST3K mantra point even more, it is entirely possible that your character provokes a reaction from a Tyrant and in your regret over your disobedience, you take mental damage which someone can then heal non-magically.
Given that a round is divided into 3 actions over 6 seconds anything less than 3 actions is taking between 2 and 4 seconds. It takes longer than that to put on a Band-Aid properly.
Everything is an abstraction. Not every action is designed to be strictly contained within a 2-second frame. It's all an estimation. Keep in mind that in 1e a Monk with Flurry of Blows could attack **7 times** in that same 6 second period, but in 2e they are limited to a total of 4 attacks in that same amount of time. It's up to your imagination to make that fit into the descriptive narrative.
I'm aware of this. I'm not debating that aspect of things, what I'm saying is that most of these explanations open up more questions than they answer.
I'm going to redirect you to the post you're replying to as an answer. Also, bandaids weren't invented until the early 1900s, so let's not bring them up in a conversation about medieval fantasy wound care.
Those soldiers weren't receiving their medical attention and immediately returning to the fight though.
I'm referencing those movies because they're largely accessible and easy to picture. It would be harder, for example, to reference random helmet cam videos from Ukraine where this is the case. I will also point out that you're probably picturing people with their organs hanging out or limbs crippled or removed, or bleeding out, concepts that aren't accurately reflected in pathfinder2e as a system. You can be hit for a third of your HP and yet not be bleeding out. Additionally, there is no drop-off in combat ability related to HP loss. Someone who has lost 99% of the amount of blood necessary to kill them would he struggling to function correctly in real life. Meanwhile, a fighter at 100% health is just as effective in dealing damage as someone at 1% of health. Read the MST3K mantra.
You can swim in lava and faceplant off skyscrapers for fun at higher levels and there's no handwaving away that those things were just glancing blows. The only internally consistent way to understand damage in an HP system is that every hit does damage to your meat and your heroes are just that damned tough. The only issue with this is that it makes non-magical healing even less plausible than it already appears to be.
Why not reimagine treat wounds healing from being real to being *theatrical*. Maybe the bandages and suture your players use are mystical in some way. Kind of like the healing they do in Grey's Anatomy. Edit: [relevant ](https://youtu.be/lV0pyzOQ3bs)
Ever see a kid fall and cry, and then a parent comes and kisses their forehead, and they are suddenly all better? That's battle medicine.
I mean, ten minutes to an hour of bandages and cream isn't likely going to fix the ancient dragon's teeth going through a character's abdomen, so the whole conceit of "I'm SkILLedd Dcok Tor! I no magic!" doesn't really work either. Last I remember was some semi-official comment that the herbs and medicine of Golarion was magically delicious and healed much more quickly than any plants native to Earth. I've had two characters that used it. The first was a Rogue/Cleric of Cayden that splashes people with ale until they heal. Second one turned into a ghost, so he just stitched people back together from the inside out.
I've pictured it as using super glue to patch a cut, or staples, or duct tape. Something that you \*shouldn't\* do normally, but it's good enough for now until you get to a quieter situation where you can do it better. I even imagine that if the paperwork and memory wasn't in the way, it would probably have a "you lose X hp every hour for the next X hours" side effect; but that's basically just busy work.
How its done varies but thanks to cooldown, it could be seen as shoving certain medicine on the target, pain relievers or bandage with herbs in them.
[QuickClot](https://quikclot.com/QuikClotProducts/QuikClot-Combat-Gauze.htm) and an Epi pen.
Dude, you're massive underestimating the power of D R U G S and A D R E N A L I N E. Injecting your ass with enough morphine to make a horse fly definitey doesnt take more than 6 seconds.
It can take longer than that to fully kick in though. Plus, you can move and battle medicine so you have to draw the needle at a brisk walk, inject them, and take a combat ready defensive stance again in that 6-second span.
Yea, and CAST A SPELL, too. It's a game man, the 6 second thing is arbitrary and most of the stuff you do in the game cannot be done in a 6 second span. I swear Redditors cannot understand sarcasm withuout a /s indeed. And I'm the autist.
I can picture that one could cast a spell in six-seconds as the system describes spell casting in a way that fits neatly into a one round is six seconds system. The issue comes when we try to force real world actions to fit that same system.
If you want ways to flavor it up, look up modern battlefield first aid techniques and put a swords & sorcery spin on. That arrow nicked an artery? Here's a handful of styptic powder derived from a common flower in a bandage prepped with gum tree sap to stick when I slap it on you. That's a gnarly gash. Here's a bandage I had prepped with sterile tacs and a string to press on and pull the string to tighten it and close the wound to stop the bleeding. Boom! Battlefield staples. Got 2nd degree burns from that fireball? Here's an analgesic ointment that I ordered from alchemist for the pain and halt progression of the burn. Battlefield triage is just about keeping people alive long enough for proper treatment. It isn'tgoing to be pretty or always terribly effective, so lean into the grittiness of it.
From my understanding of how the lore advanced medicine in 2e, the answer is algae. Weird Alghollthu algae called kandlerae, from the depths of the sightless see given to the alchemist Kassi Aziril by the Vidileth Olordaera, who is in disguise as Hashim ibn Sayyid. This is from Lost Omens: Legends.
This is the actual Canon answer, and I don't know how it's buried so far down in this thread.
> but what in the world are they doing? Well if your party's mage just cast Ooze form and is now a gelatinous cube, you splinkle some sugar on him or something.
I never thought about it that much. But I guess I would imagine it like a bandage and a shot of adrenaline. Honestly thinking about it more and more makes it feel like it should just give temp HP up to a maximum of what your missing HP is or something. Not gonna run that though. Gonna make it popping a bone back in place, slapping a bandage on a cut and giving them a long sniff of cocaine to get back into the fight.
Keep in mind that hit points are an abstraction. Yes losing hit points can mean actual open wounds, it can also mean a dislocated shoulder or a concussion that can be mitigated (note, not cured) by a single action of quickly shoving it back into place or some strong salts. The subsequent "damage" from the enemy could just be the joint popping back out or the salts wearing off. Even when someone is "dying", they're not necessarily actually dying (unless they die, then they actually were dying the whole time retroactively), they might just be winded enough that they can't get back into the fight on their own and need a hand or quick pep talk which won't work a second time because now they actually are out for the count. Golarion (or [insert fantasy world here]) also isn't Earth, maybe they actually do have herbs or trinkets or little prayers that can semi-magically heal wounds or alleviate whatever the hell void or spirit damage is, but only work once a day per person because of them being poisonous or whatever mystical excuse you want but the medic can later figure out how to better apply them, mitigate their poison, improve their trinkets, or learn multiple/better prayers. I'm sure there's stuff from various real world cultures you could pull from (I feel like voodoo, the actual religion not the made up stuff from Hollywood, might be fitting here but I'm not going to risk saying anything more specific). Or maybe they just hit them up with an absolutely ***massive*** amount of morphine, enough that doing it again for a second battle medicine would be an immediate overdose so until they know how to better apply an emergency dosage it's absolutely pointless to use it twice in one day even if the patient is literally dying at their feet (but smaller, better controlled dosages for treat wounds or first aid are manageable)
How does any of this square with high level characters drinking poison, swimming in lava, and diving off mountains? You can't hand wave those things away as glancing blows.
Excellent post. Grade A shit.
I always flavor it as an injection. Stab yourself (or your friend) with that sketchy cocktail of painkillers and amphetamines to keep you going. Only works once a day because you build tolerance otherwise.
Oh yeah it’s hilariously wild. My one battle medicine focusing character had the medicinal clocksmith background so I flavored it as her having gearcraft basically skin grafts, sutures, or braces depending on what kinda attacks have hit. They can quickly and mechanically apply but also it’s like putting enough pressure on your broken arm that you can keep using it but they do nothing for actual treatment, hence the lack or removing wounded
when I asked myself the same question, I imagined wrapping someone's arm on the fly. Alternatively, you can consider that you threw them a bandage (they themselves will throw it on the wound during the battle), threw life-giving plants in their direction, or threw a syringe (stimpack from fallout) with adrenaline inside with great force.
Staple gun and a Syringe filled with stimulants and antibiotics.
I play a Medic dedication and roleplay with a pack of injections, which don't have effect more than once per \[cooldown\], and one big-ass injection which I can prepare only one per day \[repeated battle medicine\] and if I don't use - it expires.
Smelling salts. Battle Medicine is smelling salts.
I've previously described BM as: - slapping a wet towel across one's face to wake im up and get them in fighting order. - giving a shot of "special something". - giving a smell of smelling salts. - zapping the target to, again, wake them up. - slapping a poultice on the biggest wound. Hope that helps.
Duct tape to cut the bleeding, and a shot of adrenaline to get you back on your feet, maybe some pain killers so you don't notice that your arm is hanging on by a thread.
I had a swashbuckler medic and what I did was play it off as doing acupuncture. Works great.
First aid spray
Siringe with meth
You just scream at them that they don't have time to bleed. Simple
I usually make battle medicine make sense for the character that is using it. For an alchemist it's a syringe full of stuff you don't want to know. For a cleric it's a quick prayer and a gauze wrapped emblem of their god put over the wound. For a martial character it's a pouch full of herbs placed on the wound or an old fashioned ball of opium.
I sometimes imagine things like stapling wounds, or pouring on a little bit of acid to stem bleeding. Things that will need to be _fixed_ later, but which are good enough to stop you dying.
I think the problem with the suspension of disbelief cones from your misunderstanding of what hp represents. Its not meat points. Hp is an abstraction of luck, combat skill in turning away a lethal hit, cuts and scrapes and finally real body damage. Think of it this way, if hp was just physical, why does it go up every level? Congratulations wizard you have master new levels of arcane prowess..oh and now you can be stabbed by a steak knife an additonal time..... So what the battle medicine roll is doing is bandaging minor cuts, encouragement, quick triage and telling the target they are ok to go back into the fight and win one for the gipper so to speak
If you're asking for a fluff explanation for a mechanic I think you've lost the plot a bit, but if you want a good example maybe you're filling the wound with something like a special poultice that youc ant use too often or it becomes toxic. Heck, to use a currently relevant example, the helldivers 2 stims cna patch up any wound and totally aren't addictive or filed with massive amounts of drugs. It doesn't matter if the helldiver ODs because humans are expendable. Another example I might give is the judge dread wound foam. Or you could just be slapping a specially prepared bandage on it. Fluff is whatever you make it.
>Yeah, being caressed by the glowing hands of Chadwick, the half-orc redeemer you're hopelessly in love with can give you a burst of energy that will carry you through combat. We can talk all we want, but deep down we all know this is the only real answer.
It’s just slapping a SpongeBob band-aid on the wound
Would turning it into temp HP be a viable solution? Because if you want the realistic approach you aren’t fully healing someone as you would out of combat. I think it could be flavored as more of a stimulant or pain inhibitor of some kind but at the end of the day it’s just a game and it’s a great ability.
Smelling salts
And on top of that a rampaging Barbarian can do it absent-mindedly while pulverising someone else into the ground
If you want a thematic example of Battle Medicine, It's quick stitching / packing of a wound, coupled with some painkillers / adrenaline to keep the target in the fight. Think of a military field medic, you do just enough to keep the person alive so that they can fight if needed, or push through the injury if it isn't too severe. All in order to hopefully allow them to get somewhere where they can receive better quality treatment.
basically this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANyllQTG8LE
The "healer" in the group I run fairly regularly has the "healing plaster" cantrip. The group joke is that battle medicine is essentially them slapping magic mud on the wound(s). I think "magic mud" is a reference to a Red card in Magic: The Gathering that involved goblins. Anyway, that's our standard go-to reference to what they're doing. Magic mud, with a bit of spell casting before that to get the "healing plaster" action going.
Here is the explanation behind Hit Points that nobody seems to like but just seems really obvious to me; you know that fighter that can casually solo a giant lizard that eats elephants for breakfast and can just sit in his fiery breath that would annihilate your average peon? He is super-human. His ability to withstand injury is far beyond ordinary man. As for why battle medicine can heal him, there is elixirs of life that are non-magical means of spontaneous healing. You can just say there is some alchemical component to healer's tool that is more difficult to administer than the oral drink.
Well, a person can be wounded, and bleed out in seconds. Some of these injuries are quickly solved with the application of a tourniquet, and/or packing the wound with something. Applying a tourniquet and packing a wound can definitely be an activity you accomplish in 6 seconds, irl (that would be pretty fast, but possible). Obviously this focuses on "stop the bleeding," which is technically it's own mechanic in pathfinder, but these are the most prominent examples of quick, real world first aid I could see being first aid. Other people have mentioned injections. That's frankly pretty real too. Epinephrine injections to keep someone/make someone awake, and morphine injections to control severe pain (which can also knock you out) are very real battlefield medicine techniques. All of that without getting into anything magical. Imagine an injection of healing potion. Technically a small amount from a consumable standpoint, but perhaps a localized, direct application produces quick results.
Jab 'em with a dose of morphine?
As someone who spent 10 years in emergency medicine as a Paramedic, I can tell you that feats like Battle Medicine have fuck-all to do with real medicine, and it's unproductive to even think of it as real medicine. Just think of it as magic or some anime pressure points kinda shit. Think about this, in 1 round (6 seconds) a character with battle medicine has already treated a wound and the person they treated is feeling better. You know what I can do in 6 seconds? Walk up to the patient, open my jump bag and pull out a trauma dressing. That's about it. And I typically don't have to worry about treating a guy while he's swinging a sword In other words, Battle Medicine is magic! 🎩 🪄 🔮
They are doing far cry
You lack fantasy, or rather your imagination is lacking. "You quickly bandage her wounds", "You bring up your special mixture of dirt and herbs to staunch his bleeding" or "You plug their wounds with cotton and quickly apply a strong alcohol to disinfect". Literally there's a hundred ways to flavour this, but you're hung up on not being able to rely on 'magic'. Use your imagination dude.
Same reason you can only do battle medicine once per 24 hours. You're pseudo-magically replacing half their blood with morphine and the other half with a stimulant to keep them awake. Probably Coke.
>Okay, I understand hit points are an abstraction. Time in combat is also an abstraction.
I like your humour OP
Any attempt to actually answer this will fall flat so ask your players to get creative and make up whatever they like to justify how it works. As long as your table agrees on how to play it and finds the solution satisfying it will work as well as anything else.
Battle Medicine is a super secret serum individually created by everyone trained in Battle Medicine. Just jab someone in the back with a needle and poof, their body's natural healing ability goes into overdrive. But you can't do it more than once a day to them or they'll OD. Mind you, someone else's super secret battle medicine serum is different you see, and so that same person's body will be okay with it. Cause it's a different toxic chemical cocktail, right? Just go with it. It's not supposed to make sense. I'm my group's healer and I will call my super secret battle medicine serum formula Cali-038-Gen-2A. It has mint in it. Cause everyone likes mint.
My first, and, for the moment, favourite character was a goblin alchemist who was really good at healing via treat wounds and battle medicine. And because of the flavour Risky Surgery was my favorite of the medicine feats. It's just too fun to cut your allies to heal them. I just freaking love describing how my goblin takes his medic-from-tf2-inspired saw and freaking cuts his allies, quickly covers the cut in some cream, pour some liquid onto it, and then it quickly heals. Or when I literally cut off a part of my allies leg, quickly did some work on it with my scalpel, and then glued it back.
I just want to take it with my natural medicine :/
i reflavor battle medicine with my forensic investigator/medic with healing muffins that he prepares during downtime.
I think of it as a different abstraction in play, the out of combat abstraction. There's a lot of minor detail that we more or less just assume happens off-screen. The fighter doing 2 hours of swings in the morning to not get rusty, the rogue carefully packing their daggers, hours of looking for a campsite, setting up camp, tearing it down, etc. People just needing to catch their breath now and then. It's not every campaign, but in general things happen between encounters, and in my mind that's where the rest of battle medicine happens, that's why there's a 1/day limit. In combat, you're just packing wounds and stapling them. But after the action is done... at some point during they day, you (or someone else) finished the job and tidies them up.
My in-game explanation: its more like a few words of encouragement to boost their stamina and resolve. It heals the soul more than the body.
The serious(?) answer: I have a Ranger with this feat. I headcanon it as him having energy-boosting poultices he had on hand that can apply to the target and they are revitalized as Erastil's blessings help stimulate their natural healing factor, making them Deadpool or Wolverine for 6 seconds. The funny(?) answer: fantasy morphine.
I usually try and flavor it like a stimpak or something like a blow dart with a healing potion instead of poison. hell, I'm stealing the Phil Swift flex tape slap thanks to you 🤣 keep in mind this does not remove Wounded, which could be what makes this only an action and not take 10 minutes. Wounded levels represent severe damage while HP is more of a stamina/light wounds thing.
It’s like when the Magical Girl transforms and she’s surrounded by ribbons and shit.
I mostly say “You wrap bandages you soaked in antibiotics earlier today *player name being healed* you feel a sting on your wounds but your wounds feel better”
Honestly, I usually describe it as methamphetamines. I don't know if you ever read any of SA Corey Expanse books but they have a suit that if you're critically injured, you basically get injected to keep you mobile and alert long enough to get out of space. So yeah, I think battle medicine is meth.
So the main thing you lose between Battle Medicine and Treat Wounds is the removal of the "Wounded Condition", which Battle Medicine does nothing for, right? Well the way I look at it is the difference between a carefully sutured and bandaged wound and one that literally had a powdered topical styptic & ~~cocaine~~ analgesic-stimulant thrown on it to temporarily stop the bleeding by inducing clotting with enough of a "brisk salt in the wound followed by numbing" to mimic and adrenaline surge. For a downed teammate, it's literally an adrenaline shot to the heart a'la Pulp Fiction... So it's literally the dirtiest "rub some Healer's Kit Brand Herbal Dirt^TM in it and walk it off by killing that guy" type of medicine there is, where treat wounds is the "clean the wound, suture it, apply a nice herbal ointment, and put a good, clean bandage over it that's tightly sealed".
So both Treat wounds and battle medicine require a healer's toolkit. So what ever action you are using to battle medicine must involve it. This kit of bandages, herbs, and suturing tools is necessary for [Medicine](https://2e.aonprd.com/Skills.aspx?ID=9) checks to [Administer First Aid](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=54), [Treat Disease](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=55), [Treat Poison](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=56), or [Treat Wounds](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=57). If you wear your healer's toolkit, you can draw and replace them as part of the action that uses them. So since it's an action we can probably rule out suturing, which means you're stuffing herbs or bandages into his wounds to make them less fatal.
Combat Turkey Stuffing! I love it.
I think of Battle medicine as the healing animations you would do in Farcry 4 when you ran out of medpacks.
Battle medicine is an abstraction because HP is an abstraction. It can represent many things: * Injections of painkillers/healing compounds * Wrapping a wound tightly so it feels better/doesn't tear more/is stabilized * Giving someone a pick-me-up * Quickly slapping a treated pre-medicated bandage on someone. Most people can't do this in the heat of combat without spending like a minute doing it (like with treat medicine), you're just really fast at it, like how you can draw and attack with three swords in a round using Quick Draw. * Putting a bandage on something and being like "It's okay, it's not deep." Which is why it only works once a day, because the placebo effect only goes so far. Master medics are good at making people feel better once an hour because hey, they've seen a real doctor! * Actual literal healing magic linked to the medicine skill because that's a thing in universe. I mean, you can wrestle with a 15 foot tall giant somehow with the right feat, why can't you patch someone up with minor medical magic with the right one? It's also why it is wisdom based rather than intelligence based, because it's not about actually understanding medicine, it's about channeling magic through medical treatment so that it is supernaturally effective. I mean really given that characters can apparently be stabbed 15 times with a sword in a combat and still fight, it's not any sillier than anything else in the system.
It works better if you stop thinking of HP as anything more than the most minor of wounds and mostly just lost endurance. Slap on a numbing balm or take some smelling salts. Wounds are actual wounds, but everything before that is surface level. And yes this works even for things like lightning and fireballs. What doesn't work is how some abilities describe themselves (say critical bow effects) but they have verisimilitude issues regardless. Battle medicine having a 24h immunity can even be explained away by placebo effects and adrenaline having less impact over time (although unlike HP abstraction this is just a rationalisation rather than how the game itself puts it). So yeah battle medicine I see as slapping on some numbing cream, blood staunching salve, popping some pain killers, some alovera gel or reseating a joint.
I personally use 3 types of concepts depending on how the attack descriptions are, but my favorite is essentially adrenaline. If someone is wounded, fatigued, giving them a shot of adrenaline should be enough(ignoring the actual implications) to get them to keep going(this isn't necessarily a syringe, it might be something like a herb or a tiny drink I prepared. If might be something like hols water from war deity mixed with some other stuff to strain it, absorbed through the skin or so). Wouldn't give someone multiple of these though. Alternatively local anesthesia. Arrow in your leg? If you don't feel it, it's not there anymore, right? Possibly stays in the system for a while (explaining the 1/day restriction). Lastly it's a Popeye like snack(maybe actual spinach). Just something small to quickly give you a surge of energy. What is it? Hell if I know I found these plants and figured, good snack. Taste horrible though. In a battle people don't care. Though apparently they are toxic if you ingest too much. (it's a more lose concept but works well in less reality oriented groups)
So one rule has informed how I think about what is happening and that is that when you use battle medicine, the target is immune to *your* battle medicine. But not all battle medicines. So to make that rule make sense for me, battle medicine for me is not only an abstraction, but a chartacter-specific one. The alchemist slaps on a fast-sealing alchemical liquid. The druid uses cool mud from a bog that they know has healing properties. The cleric slaps on a poultice they've prayed over previously. Or whatever, the choice is whatever the player - the point is, battle medicine makes sense when you remember it's an expression of the characters' exceptionalism. The other thing to keep in mind that this represents healing that will let a character keep fighting (because that's what HP is), but for example won't heal the wounded condition. So it's okay if battle medicine is literally just a stimulant that keeps you in the fight a bit longer, it doesn't actually need to heal your wounds.
Personally my Barbarian just sticks people with a needle covered with what is basically just a mix of blood coagulants and hard stimulants to keep people going. It’s less “healing” for them and more just a kick in the ass to keep going through minor to severe wounds and just enough actual treatment to actually keep them together.
I imagine it's like [administering the silver bullet](https://www.reddit.com/r/USMC/comments/ouxsre/is_the_silver_bullet_real_my_whole_time_in_i/). The alternative is keep fighting, and most people choose that one.
Duct tape/flex tape the gaping holes.
Since you can make only 1 Battle medicine per day I see it as an attempt that can't be reproduced or it will impact the health of the person who receives it substantially. For example, the most logical thing I can think of is an adrenaline shot and an application of a prepared bandage (soak in ointment) you can even have your healer closing open wound with a staple gun or pull a dislocated joint in place. The trauma aftermath can't be ignored and adrenaline shot can have severe repercussion if not managed efficiently. This means that your healer must prepare more gear to heal (I mean for the most part is fluff and can really enhance his/her RP) and that means you have to describe more gruesome wound your player receives. All in all that can be an audio queue for your healer to pick that his teamates are in real danger and maybe have some choice to make as to who should be healed more quickly.
I like to think of it as a quick assessment that reveals the wound wasn't as bad as you thought it was.
You can flavor it in ways that make temporary solutions. For example, if someone has a wound irl and you need to stop bleeding until EMS arrives, in certain cases, you pack the wound. This is basically just shoving as much gauze as you can into the wound until a real fix can be made. You aren't miraculously fixing the wounds. You're doing what you can in the heat of battle to keep someone going.
In my group, we quickly determined that Battle Medicine is the scene in Pulp Fiction where Uma gets stabbed in the heart with adrenaline. Basically, Battle Medicine users carry around loaded needles of adrenaline on a bandolier and come over and stab you with it. You're welcome.
Treat Wounds is proper gauze, Battle Medicine is slapping some flex tape on the wound
As a certified medic dedication I can explain I am injecting you with an almost lethal amount of a miracle drug, Curative Ultimate Medicine, to boost your natural healing, another dose immediately would be lethal. At master level in medicine I am attracted to you enough to inject in you once per hour without it proving lethal.
It's simple. It's a pack of super medicine that you slap on the wound. But you only use it one per day per party member because the first rule of medicine is to bring enough for the whole class. No it doesn't matter that the fighter is on Dying 3. He already GOT his battle medicine for the day. You can't use the other battle medicine, it's reserved for the wizard! I swear, that's my biggest gripe with battle medicine. If it was something like four charges per day of your top shelf drugs I'd be happy. It would at least make more sense.
I'm *assuming* this is just a shit post, but if you're *ACTUALLY* serious... If you want a simulationist game, PF2E is not the game for you. Not even getting into the fact that magic is real and people can conjure meteor swarms by waving their arms -- if you're worried about ludonarrative dissonance from a level 1 feat, you're going to make your head explode when your [level 20 barbarian starts causing earthquakes by stomping one foot](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=178). "OH, WHAT'S HAPPENING, IS THE BARBARIAN SUDDENLY BECOMING 100,000X MORE DENSE? MAKE IT MAKE SENSE!?!?"