Heal - Advanced Medical (3.5e Skill)

Heal
Summary::Advanced forms of healing allow you to perform surgeries, patch wounds in an instant, determine health and vitality, and even reattach limbs. This is an expansion to the usual uses of the heal skill. Some uses require the consumption of a healer's kit.

Check
Staunch Bleeding: You can stop bleed effects which cause you to lose hp each round.

Preserve Body Part: Over the course of 10 minutes, you can preserve an organ or body part so that it rots slower and stays fresh longer, important for dealing with grafts and limb re-attachment. This consumed a use of a healer's kit.

Healing Surge: You invigorate the target, who recovers lost hit points as if they had rested for a night (typically 1 hp/level and 1 point of ability damage). Regardless how many times you perform it, a creature can only benefit from a healing surge once every 24 hours.

Invasive Surgery: You can perform invasive surgery, cutting open a creature, adding, altering, or removing parts, and closing them up successfully. Invasive surgery takes 8 hours of focus and requires an entire healer's kit (all 10 charges) and a prepared clean room. If this was not prepared increase the DC by +10. If the room has not been cleaned, increase the DC by +10. Invasive surgery usually applies numbing agents to the patient in order to keep them out of pain while being cut.

Surgery is difficult to pull off. If you fail the DC on the initial check, something messed up during the operation the target begins dying and loses 1 hp/HD each round. The surgeon must roll against the DC each round. Two consecutive successes must be made, the first stopping the loss of hp, and the second stabilizing the target and ensuring the rest of the surgery goes smoothly. Each failed attempt raises the DC by +4, quickly making it impossible to recover if you do not act quickly.

Most surgery involves adding or removal, such as removing a dangerous parasite. Brain surgery is particularly difficult, and increases the DC by +10. After a successful operation, the target creature is exhausted and staggered for 24 hours, and fatigued for 1d10 days after. Fatigue and exhaustion may be treated daily as normal.

Re-attach Limbs: Sometimes you lose a limb. If the limb is still fresh and preserved, you can attempt to re-attach it without resorting to magic. Re-attaching a limb is a form of invasive surgery and follows all the same rules as above, except there is no threat of bleeding out. If the check fails, you simply fail and waste precious time while the limb festers. On a successful check, the limb is re-attached and regains partial mobility. Arms can be used, but suffer a -2 penalty to any use of it, and legs halve your speed (assuming two legs). Full mobility eventually returns over the course of 2d10 days. Successful long term care can halve this time.

Detect HD: Ever wonder how you're supposed to know the HD of a creature for soul bind? By succeeding on a check of 10 + the target's HD, you can gauge how many HD it has. Characters do not have a concept of HD, but they can gauge its relative strength and prowess through this method.

Detect Hp: By succeeding on a check of 20 + the target's HD, you can determine the exact amount of maximum hp and hp remaining a creature has. Characters do not have a concept of hp, but they can gauge its relative health exact enough to determine how close it is to death.

Action
Usually a standard action unless otherwise noted. Healing requires you to be in touch range so you can physically interact with the target.

Try Again
Varies. Generally speaking, you can’t try a Heal check again without proof of the original check’s failure. You can always retry a check to provide first aid, assuming the target of the previous attempt is still alive.

Untrained
Most uses of Heal can be done untrained, except for healing surge, invasive surgery, and re-attach limbs.