One thing my group are having problems getting used to is that the Healing skill is of no use unless the character being treated is dying or at least wounded. Twice now a character has tried to heal another to reduce their endurence damage and I have had to tell them both times that there is no effect. I am wondering if a house rule might work where someone might make a healing roll to restore a small amount of endurence.

I am thinking of a heal roll which gives 1, 2, or 3 points back dependant on the success level. This would only be repeatable once every 6-12 hours (not decided yet). If used on a character with an untreated wound it would act as treating the wound only and if used on a character with a treated wound it would only provide 1 or 2 endurence on a great or extraordinary success.

Does this sound balanced to you guys?

E

Personally I'd go with tying it to herbs or some other ability that's used through the Healing skill rather than it *just* being the Healing skill that gives this benefit. For example, I created the following 'herb' effect:

Carefree Mustard
Soothing poultice made from seeds, ripe for harvest in autumn which heals superficial injuries restoring 1, 2, or 3 endurance points on a standard, great, or extraordinary success respectively. Mix one cup of seeds in water and pound with pestle. Must be used immediately upon preparation, but seeds may be stored.

There's also Athelas...

Athelas
Legendary healing herb whose effects are linked to the person preparing them. The ‘rightful’ king can employ it to cure the worst of maladies so long as the patient still lives, while a lesser man may find more modest uses – for a standard success 1 point of endurance is recovered, for a great success (2 points), and for an extraordinary success (3 points) and the removal of the wearied state.

Check out pages 30 and 31 for more herbs in the additional rules link in my sig. <Shameless plug!>

It may not be a bad idea. It will allow your characters to get endurance back faster and make the healing skill more useful, but it may lead to a lot of dice rolling as you "nickle and dime" your characters back to full endurance over time....

One thing we did for a little while was allow one healing roll per character who lost endurance in a given scene, as the healer looks over minor injuries and finds ways to aliviate them., again 1, 2 or 3 endurance.... no more than was lost.

Another idea is that you allow the healing rolls over time but make it only work for characters who are missing more than 1/2 thier endurance so it's not always coming up, and the healer can only treat injuroes that seem more significant....

Anyway I'm a big fan of being flexable and adjusting as I go. I think you should try your idea and if it seems like too much dice rolling try to moderate it/modify it.

I think of endurance as being tied just as much to 'the will to carry on' as to 'how many whacks you can take'.

How would 'healing' help you gird your loins and press on? Remember after a battle a short thirty minute rest gives you back endurance equal to your heart rating (I think that's right haven't got the books handy). I think 'the will to carry on' is why endurance is tied to the heart stat.

Healing is more about dealing with deep cuts or broken bones, or deliberating poisons or sickness rather than tending to scrapes and bruises or being winded.

You could houserule it "backwards" into the system.

While it isn't clear in the rulebook, the Loremaster's screen clearly indicates that the company rejuvenates Endurance overnight but also after a rest-and refit period (10 minutes I think?).

You could allow that rest and refit only on a successful roll of Healing, of else scale it based on single/great/extraordinary successes.

We found this out as well and did come up with a house rule.

At the end of an encounter a character with the healing skill can treat other characters who have lost endurance. On a successful (TN14) the injured character recovers endurance equal to their basic Heart attribute. Only 1 roll per character per encounter. If the character lost no endurance this encounter then no roll can be made.

This makes the skill a bit more useful and represent treating exhaustion, cuts and bruises and the morale lift of someone sympathetic fussing over you when hurt/tired.

We have a woodsman with healing in the party, he prefers to use herbs but falls back to healing if no herbs or a character is very low on endurance.

Sorry there appears to be an echo in here

The delete button has no effect!

Anyway, the LM could introduce some Healing challenges even without house-ruling the game. The PCs could meet some sick or wounded folks, and I think that helping them could be a great way of improving their reputations (or simply of ensuring that the characters are good people).

I personally have no issue with Heal relating to treating Wounds and dealing with poisons, diseases etc. I see Endurance damage as more to do with exhaustion, bruises and other effects which aren't readily "healed" except with rest and time. I also find that Endurance recovers pretty quickly as it is and would be reluctant to allow it to recover faster.

If I had to introduce this house rule, I would reduce natural recovery to Heart, and have the fixed number of Endurance recovered be replaced by the kind of roll you suggest i.e. 1 to 3 Endurance based on success.

I tend to agree with Skywalker here, in that I'm not certain I have experienced much need for enhanced Endurance recovery through an additional heal.

Also, AB, pg. 145 Resting: "Recover Endurance: Player-heroes recover a number of Endurance points for every prolonged rest they enjoy every day (usually, a night's sleep). The amount of points recover depends on the current health of the character . . . ."

Given the OP, it's sounds like the problem is less Endurance recovery than it is skill utility. If that's the case, I would perhaps make the point to your players that TOR's heal mechanic is different and more subtle - it's less "Cure Light Wounds" and/or "Healing Surge" than it is triage and stabilization.

Additionally, from a "game-y" perspective, using RAW PCs can only gain a maximum of 3 AP per Skill group per Adventuring phase so, continual use of the skill might increase the chances of great and extraordinary successes, but this is bounded by the 3 point cap.

My house-rules are as follows:

Treating an Injury starts at TN: 14
Treating a dying player starts at TN: 16
add +2 (cumulative) if:
-the injured person has been poisoned
-the injured person is diseased
-the injured person was made wounded by something "Brutal" ( i leave that to the Loremaster's discretion, but possible "Brutal" affects could be torture, morgul blade, being crushed under a massive rock, etc.)

This gives the player a reason to push Healing past 2 or 3 ranks, as some checks could potentially be pretty tough.

Also, when a healer rolls to treat an injury, a successful roll allows you to heal 2 endurance per day
However, a great success increases that to 3 per day, and an extraordinary success increases it to 4 per day.

I, like others have said, would not allow Healing checks to be made during the "recovery" phase or as part of an untreated endurance recovery. The rules above, however, should make it so the player who is acting as healer feels his skill is a bit more critical all around.

If you're looking for other places to utilize, might I recommend building it into NPCs story-arcs?
-A wounded animal needs a gifted healer.
-The players stop by a village with a wounded person. Success is required to earn the gratitude necessary for the plot to continue.
-Use healing checks to determine the cause of death of someone or something (investigative)
-Use healing checks to learn the cause of disease or toxicity (investigative)
-Use the healing skill to learn or understand a climactic monster's weakness (for example, to learn that Smaug had a missing armor plate where a weapon could do mortal damage).
-Use healing skill score as a pre-requistite to earn the trust of a powerful companion (for example, you could rule that Elrond will only be Patron to someone with a Healing Skill of 3 or higher).

AB 144: "Recovery," details how characters recover Endurance at the end of each combat, if they take a 30 minute rest and are not Wounded.

This is often missed.

Pretty much that is the main issue. There is minor issue of getting the players to not look at endurence damage as actual damage. We are all used to systems where damage taken in combat is real damage and so can be bandaged/magic'd/stimmed away.

Having a healing skill suggests a lot but due to the mechanics delivers little. This is not necessarily a system failure though it is not the direction I would have gone in personally. It does remind me in many ways of the Lord of the Rings online MMO health system. However, in Lotro there were many healing mechanics which increased your 'morale' and therefore made you feel better.

Bearing in mind the suggestions I have heard I have to be honest I prefer my own idea in as much as it is limited to the amount of times it can be done (once every 6/12 hours) and gives 1 2 or 3 points dependant on the roll, though using the skill to deal with poisonhs, diseases and plot injuries (NPC's) would I think work well. Though Formats house rule looks interesting.

@bbarlow thank you for pointing out the recovery after combat, we were aware of it but again it is not so much about the recovery of endurence more having a skill with limited utility.

E