Well, this may be a really dumb question, but I'm about to play in my first game of D&D real soon and will be creating a character at the start of the session with other nooby players (along with some experienced players and a really experienced DM to help us through this).
So my question pertains to my characters background and it's pretty simple: Are there any Doctors in the world of D&D? I don't mean clerics or any other character class; just actual, practical, non-magical doctors, or even just a concept of the word doctor. Its just a question for the purpose of creating a character to roleplay as, and not anything to do with gameplay. So if you can tell me, it would be real helpful.
Thanks
and if i accidently posted this in the wrong subforum thing, I'm very sorry, didn't mean no harm.
To create a non-magical doctor in game, all you really need is to be trained in Heal. The rest is just flavor.
Ask your DM. D&D usually takes place in a fantasy world. If it's more medievalish, you could have folk healers, barbers applying leeches and bloodletting, and the ocassioanl physic. If it's more modernish, you could have trained medical doctors.
To create a non-magical doctor in game, all you really need is to be trained in Heal. The rest is just flavor.
This is good advice.
Actually, you should also probably take the feat "Skill Focus (Heal)" and a Background that gives you the extra +2 bonus to Heal checks (or puts Heal on your Skill list if you choose a character class that doesn't have it on your skill list).
Then again, nobody said he was a good doctor. Maybe just having some skill at Bluff would suffice.
Why would there be doctors? Everyone can spend their healing surges during a five minute rest aka heal themselves regeneratively so what service does a doctor provide?
The only thing I can really think of is curing diseases and other rituals that not everyone has. If you're interested in a "man of science" approach I'd skew it that way. Or better yet alchemically?
Why would there be doctors? Everyone can spend their healing surges
No, only PCs can, and healing surges and hit points don't represent all the injuries you can incur. Those are abstractions related to combat injuries a PC could incur. And PCs simply won't incur things like pulled tendons, broken bones and infected wounds because those aren't heroic.
But that doesn't mean they don't exist. The DM could easily have an encounter involving treating a farmer whose cart has upturned, breaking the man's leg. Or an encounter in which a woman is giving birth to a breach baby. Or person looking for a remedy for gout. These things don't happen to the PCs, but they do happen.
Heck, if the DM wants lingering wounds that the doctor can aid in recuperating, he might want a gander at my system for Convalescence Points.
The only thing I can really think of is curing diseases and other rituals that not everyone has. If you're interested in a "man of science" approach I'd skew it that way. Or better yet alchemically?
In D&D, there is little difference between alchemy and science.
On this thread -
Why would there be doctors? Everyone can spend their healing surges during a five minute rest aka heal themselves regeneratively so what service does a doctor provide?
The only thing I can really think of is curing diseases and other rituals that not everyone has. If you're interested in a "man of science" approach I'd skew it that way. Or better yet alchemically?
cute. but no.
a healing surge is closer to an adrenaline rush then actual physical healing and you don't have an unlimited amount either.
it's not "realistic" but then again, neither is HP. healing in D&D has ALWAYS been clunky as heck due to HP being an abstraction of not just health but luck, plot armor, near misses, scrapes, ect... and either left you bedridden for weeks because your abstracted health/plot armor/luck took a big hit and you don't have a divine magic user around or you do happen to have one and you're up and ready by the next morning. very little "take a day off to rest up". healing in D&D is usually a large issue or blip on the radar.
this is compounded by the fact that D&D has no actual chart to describe how hurt you actually are or any penalties associated to being hurt. body locations are not taken into any consideration and there aren't any way to "hurt" the body other then HP damage. the fact that a 200 HP character is just as capable a fighter as a guy on his last 1 HP says a lot about the abstraction D&D takes in this regard.
so what point does a doctor type serve in D&D? not much as far as PCs are concerned, but that doesn't mean the rest of the world will go on without them. NPCs are usually unstatted narrative devices and those that do have stats only have one or two surges at best (if we follow the MM rules, unless these have been errata'ed).
it should also be noted that most small idyllic country villages probably don't have a powerful cleric living among them. an actual village of 100-200 people might a cleric or two as representative of their faith, but the smaller farming communities of 3-5 families with 7-10 kids each probably don't, though they might know a doctor who lives "nearby" be it an old hermit in heart of the forest, the witch living in the leech bog, that young'un from the city that moved in the old Habernathy place down the road or whatever.
these are the people who heal the common ailments of NPCs. the more learned ones might know how to perform a remove disease/curse or whatnot but that's closer to hedge magic then the kind the clerics brandish about and in a small community the resources/components might not be immediately available.
but yeah, generally speaking D&D characters rarely require prolonged rest due to the fact that HP is a very abstract measure of health. NPCs usually don't have that convenience so doctors in some form are required to keep the general non-PC/adventuring populace up and about.
Ask your DM. D&D usually takes place in a fantasy world. If it's more medievalish, you could have folk healers, barbers applying leeches and bloodletting, and the ocassioanl physic. If it's more modernish, you could have trained medical doctors.
Don't go forgetting such things as field surgeons.
For as long as people have been fighting here in the real world there's been others that tended to their injuries (or tried).
And in a D&D world all those fighting certainly aren't of the herioc calibre of the PCs (complete with their dozens-hundereds of HPs & now healing surges). Also, how likely is it that there's always a cleric handy?
So when a common soldier takes an arrow, gets stabbed/crushed/burnt/bitten/etc....
Apothecary for example is a herbalist, modernly refered to as a pharmasist or chemist. Most likely they would be seen to obtain medicines. Although in theory a physician should diagnos the illness and then prescribe a medicine that the patient would get from Apothecary, in past times an apothecary would handle both aspects and diagnos and prescribe to the patient, especially in rural areas where he might be the only trained healer.
A medicine man, or apothecary who deals in herbs, medicines and potions would be an excelent setting in D&D, especially as characters are often looking for potions. Likely he might also be a source of poisons as well.
Barbers, yes refering to the haircutters, used to also be part of the medical field and would also handle dentistry and act as surgeons and other medical tasks between haircuts. The reason being that they had both the tools and steady hand required for both trades (medical equipment being rather rudimentry at the time I supose). The traditional red and white spiral barber pole comes from this to denote the 2 trades.
A church is also another place to find a healer. Not refering to divine healing spells, but rather the sick and ill often went to a religious place as a last means to find healing, and often temples served as hosptitals for such people. Aside from Divine Healing, the priests in a church was more often then not, the only educated people around in rural areas, and thus had skills beyond woodchopping and hunting, often assisted by their nuns who had training as nurses. At the very least care by a competent nurse to change bandages etc in a clean, dry invironment is better then nothing.
Midwifes also are an option, not always limited to simply childbirth or gynecology, although during the middle ages the church regulated them down to a more simpler role, before this they often acted as healers for their whole village, using traditional, folk, medicine.
So if your character is trained at a university, then he can be a doctor, but even so he'd probably use a title like physician or surgeon as well. This is of course assuming that higher education in your DM's setting works anything like it did in our middle ages.
Just as a side note, "physician" would likely be a much more respected title than "surgeon" - historically, a great number of military "surgeons" only had enough basic medical training to perform first aid, sew wounds and cut off limbs. Many were barbers or butchers in civilian life. Until the advent of modern medical proceedures (around the time of the American Civil War or so), a great number of the men who were casualties of warfare died after the battle in their surgeons' tents...
From a general perspective, "physician" would probably sufficiently cover anybody who had at least as much actual "medical" training as they did skill in the lower-tech medicinal practices such as herbalism or alchemy.
It bears mentioning that there's no reason medical science has to be limited to the level it was in Dark Ages Europe, so your doctors can be considerably more competent if you wish them to be.
This is especially true depending on the setting. I think it was Forgotten Realms, though it may be others, that states that most people are literate, at least to a degree. They are clearly at least somewhat out of the Dark Ages, where the nobility and clergy kept power not only through money and force, but information, as they were some of the few people expected to have any formal education of value. "Knowledge is Power" isn't just a slogan for Schoolhouse Rock, there is truth to it.
Brief overview: you score a critical hit, then you compare the margin you hit by to a set of static numbers. The more you hit by the more severe the effect. You hit a random part of the body and cause a crippling injury. You can also do a "called shot" to take a penelty to the attack roll and automaticly inflict one of these effects.
Besides, it's only $10.00 on RPGNow.
I would just like to mention that you can add "critical hit effects" to make combat both more gritty and cause more need for traditional medicine. There's a book called "Torn Asunder" by Bastion Press that's made for 3/3.5, but could probably be adapted to 4e pretty easily. I find it very useful in a lower magic campaign or something aiming to be more "realistic".
Brief overview: you score a critical hit, then you compare the margin you hit by to a set of static numbers. The more you hit by the more severe the effect. You hit a random part of the body and cause a crippling injury. You can also do a "called shot" to take a penelty to the attack roll and automaticly inflict one of these effects.
Besides, it's only $10.00 on RPGNow.
I can't imagine how such a thing could actually be balanced.
Q. How do I survive in a modern campaign with guns?
A. Get shot less!
In other words, why actually explore the Kobold's den when you can seal the exits and light a fire at the main entrance instead.
If I'm running a zombie hackfest, on the other hand, I usually say "screw it, critical effects don't happen to PCs". That makes it much easier on the players, and can lead to some very nice memories about chopping the zombie's head off.
D&D was not built with called shots or limb damage in mind. i've honestly never been in a game of D&D where this kind of rule (or even crit fumbles) actually helps build a better session (this is the important thing, does the rule make for a better game experience or not. my experience leads me to believe "not") nor does it lend for a more realistic D&D in any sense of the word (even in a low magic world, D&D works in very weird ways and a 5% chance of random dismemberment or blinding in a game where you can beat world athletic records on a regular attempt just doesn't really add anything when you're supposed to be playing a group of heroes).
It's really just another tool, I like it because it makes combat more interesting and removes some of the nebulous aspect of what exactly HP represents, but if it is applied to PCs and heroic characters as well it can ruin a player's day very quickly. I imagine it would make Minions worse than Solos if used "as written" in a 4e context.
At the end of the day I just like seeing my monsters get torn apart in creative ways by the PCs, I imagine if I was a player most of the time I'd hate these rules too. At least I realise this enough to make PCs immune unless it's a really serious campaign.
At the end of the day I just like seeing my monsters get torn apart in creative ways by the PCs,
You don't need rules for that, just give the PCs some narrative control when they drop an enemy to zero HP. let them tell you how they cleaved the orc from crotch to sternum, or ripped its arms off, or whatever.
You don't need rules for that, just give the PCs some narrative control when they drop an enemy to zero HP. let them tell you how they cleaved the orc from crotch to sternum, or ripped its arms off, or whatever.
I'll give you that. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I found this book when I first started D&D and it got nostalgia filter protection as I learned more about what makes a good game.
If I recall correctly that book had all kinds of broken. There was a fully animated prosthetic arm (with limbs flying off all over the place you kind of need them) that let you store wands inside it. You could discharge them as a swift action (3e's version of a minor) while still having something in your hand. There was also an artifact version which let you store 4 wands and discharge them all at the same time. That one scared me...
Alright, to drag this back around to being on topic, rules like this would certainly make a reason for non-magical doctors to exist. IIRC most of the nastier effects couldn't be treated by a "cure X wounds" spell, and needed either very high-level magic or treatment by someone with the heal skill and lots of time to recover.
I'm still thinking about "splitting an orc from crotch to sternum". I'm not a medieval weapon fighter by any means, but I imagine you'd need a decidedly non standard combat technique to pull that off
(that said, I've had a couple players who would think it was the height of humor).P.S. That last paragraph wasn't meant to be anything but a joke, I'm not attacking you in any way.
(even in a low magic world, D&D works in very weird ways and a 5% chance of random dismemberment or blinding in a game where you can beat world athletic records on a regular attempt just doesn't really add anything when you're supposed to be playing a group of heroes).
That's why threating a critical miss(just like a critical hit) is best. Critical misses should be as close as possible to the exact opposite of a critical hit. At least in my opinion. If you don't have the chance of getting a critical hit 5% of the time, then you shouldn't have the chance of getting a critical miss 5% of the time.
To clarify you mean medical doctors? Because I'm sure the world of D&D has many PHDs and time travelers. Just saying.
D&D also has monsters like "Hamster, Giant Space" (and the miniature version thereof), but that doesn't mean there are traditional spaceships or astronauts.
To clarify you mean medical doctors? Because I'm sure the world of D&D has many PHDs and time travelers. Just saying.
Have you actually read the thread? Any "doctors" encountered in a medieval setting are more likely to be of the PHD than MD variety. D&D worlds might also have doctors of magic, if magic is studied in a university setting, and I suppose those might research magical time travel, among other things.