How useful is a medic and is really worth having one in your party. While I was GMing a game one of the players chose to be a medic. Then during game he found out medics can really only heal each player once per day with the value of their intelligence bonus (in his case 4). This seems fairly useless unless someone were dying.

Is there something I am missing or is that it for medic's healing ability?

If there is nothing I am missing and that is really all medics can do I have made some home rules for the medicae skill's first aid ability:

- Medicae: the medic player may heal any character at any point in the game, however, the medic may only heal up to 2d10+Intelligence bonus per day (reroll for a new value each day, excess healing does not carry over).

This way the medic gains a sort of health pool that they can designate which characters are in the most critical condition and heal them accordingly.

I've changed how first aid works slightly (way back in DH) and I think it makes the medicae skill more useful.

Whenever you take damage you write it down seperately. For example if you take 3 damage in the first round and 2 more in the second round you write that down as 3, 2 as opposed to 5. Each wound can be treated once. The medicae test can only restore as much health as the wound has cased per wound.
Your "damage status" (lightly wounded, heavily wounded, critically wounded) applies to all wounds so getting treatment earlier is better than getting treatment later.

Overall I think the Medicae skill is useful but having a dedicated Medic isn't always neccesary.

Another thing to remember with the medicae skill is that any degree of success when making a first aid check also adds to the number of wounds healed, a med kit can also help giving you a bonus of +20 to skill checks.  You could also try and get a Cebebral Implant for your medic to give him some unnatural intelligence.

Also the game by its nature is trying to be a bit on the gritty side so can't have people healed to easy each fight as it takes away a lot of the threat of combat, but while a starting medic may only be able to heal 3 to 4 HP with every test before DoS to start with, eventualy with some bonus gear or more skill points it can be increased a bit.  

Robomummy said:

Okay, first, everyone with Medicae can heal. The medic's advantage is the +5 Int, starting aptitudes (he has both cheap Int and cheap Medicae) and the starting equipment. Especially the starting equipment. 

Second, with First-Aid you heal your TB+number of Degrees of Sucess on the First Aid Test. The Medic has an overall +25 bonus (+5 Int, +20 Medi-kit) to his Medicae Test, this is potentially +2 Damage removed. 

i think the Medic is kinda' like a compulsory member. Yeah, others can learn Medicae too, but the Medic starts with a huuuuge boost that is nigh-impossible to make up for other characters. And a party without someone with good Medicae is a dead party :). 

I don't have my book with me, but isn't the medicae skill be used once per encounter rather than once per day?

Isn't it once every 24 hours for the person BEING treated for first aid?  ie an injured soldier can only be treated by someone with Medicae once per 24hours, whereas  a medic with Medicae can treat as many soldiers as long as he counts the full action taken

Braddoc said:

Braddoc said:

OW style Medicae can only be used to Treat (that is attempt, not necessarily successfully) someone once per 24 hours - and that's First Aid or Extended Care, not both in the same period. The PCs are very much merely mortal and quite likely to die from wounds; for instance the -50 penalty that would apply to a First Aid attempt to heal a Crit 5 injury. I believe the quote goes "A sucking chest wound is Nature's way of telling you to slow down."

Were are you getting this?

sorry Ignore above post, I meant to ask where you were getting the information that a medicae can heal at anyone multiple times.

Robomummy said:

The isse you're going to see with this thread is that Medicae as a skill has changed drastically in OW as opposed to the other 40K RPG games. Even more so, it has changed quite a bit during the OW beta. Not everyone has their rules on them at any given point in time (obviously those speaking with authority do have their book with them).

I don't have my book with me right now but I'm with jdubb in that I coulda sworn the wording was that the 24 hour wait was for the patient of First Aid, not for the healer. You're definitely going to want to read through the medicae black box in the skills section, paying close attention to the First Aid action.

All that said, I can definitely say a medic is better than your average guardsman at healing. If there is no medic/medicae trained character present, a GM will really need to make sure there is some way to remove damage from the squad, or encourage players to not be attached to their characters.

Part of the problem is that unless you're a medic, a tech preist, a psyker or an operator, training in medicae is going to be pretty costly.

KommissarK said:

Actually, you need to be either a Medic or an Operator to get the cheap Medicae as a basic option. STs, Ratlings and Weapon Specialists can also get it if they acquire the Intelligence aptitude. tech Priests and Psykers only have a cheap Int Advance, what won't be enough on the long run.

Robomummy said:

I don't have the book in front of me, but I believe based on the wording, it is implied that using the First-Aid-Medicae skill can heal mutliple people during a given day; however each person can only be affect by First Aid-Medicae skill ONCE per 24 hours.

It is different for whatever it's called, extended care?, where a Medicae skilled person can only treat a certain number of individuals at once over a 24hour period.

KommissarK said:

thats what I meant, I thought someone said the medic can heal anyone at will multiple times. I know they can heal once per day per player.

The medic can heal the same person several times, BUT there are some restrictions…

Each "group" of wounds that you attempt to heal can only be healed once/24 hours.

So, if I am playing a Stormtrooper with 16 wounds, and get shot twice in the first round of combat for 4 and 5 wounds (after armor and such), and take cover behind a wall while the medic tries to heal me.. Lets say he heals me for 5 points of damage. Out of the first 2 attacks i had taken a total of 9 damage, then got healed for 5. This means I have 4 remaining wounds that are TREATED.

So if I in the few rounds of battle, or a bit later within those 24 hours, take another hit for 2 wounds (putting me at 6wounds of damage), the medic rolls and again would be able to heal 5, he would still only be able to heal those 2 later wounds, because the first 4 have already been treated.

So basically everytime you attempt a first aid, you treat ALL the wounds currently on that character. They are ALL treated, no matter how many of them you remove or not.

If I had taken 4 wounds, then gotten healed and then shot again for 5 wounds and healed, the medic would probably have been able to remove them all.

So yeah, a good medic of some kind is more or less essential in this game. Preferably one that will do it's best to heal wounds ASAP, to make sure there wont be too many treated, but unhealed, wounds.

A medic on the other hand could just as well be a Tech-priest, an operator or even a weapon specialist trained in the skill (or using an advanced kit). How ever, a group not starting with a medic should, in my personal opinion, not have as easy to get hold of first aid kits. Especially not advanced ones. But it depends on the group a bit as well. A droptrooper regiment might not be able to afford a properly trained medic, and might instead use advanced first aid kits on a designated medicae weaponspecialist. Biggest advantage of medics is they start with the kit.

Healing only 4 points of dammage sounds kinda low to me.

Im playing a medic myselve and he is able to do a lot more.

1) In 50 ( rolled maximum, +5 for medic, +5 cheap raise)

2) medic +10

3) medkit (+20)

so I roll normaly against an 80%

You heal In bonus ( 5 ) + any numer of degree of sucess

normaly he gets every player back to near Maximum after they got hit in battle.

Even heavy and critical wounded chars are at least back to fighting ability

A Medic's best friend is a Psyker with Endurance. The Psyker can't handle the squad's healing on his own unless people only ever get very minor damage. If the Psyker can turn Critical or Heavy wounds up a grade, the medic himself spikes rather nicely in effectiveness.

Characters in Only War are expected to have a couple of days to recuperate, or to try and find the time for it when they can, even if that's just lying down a few more hours in a foxhole. This may be a pacing we've not seen since DH Biomancers, DnD3.x casters and the such, but "we'll lick our wounds" is a perfectly acceptable use of your character's time.

Not literally though. Could result in acid, mutagens or shrapnel-cuts across your tongue. Then the medic will get angrier.