Well, my example was just for showing how it works.

Also an average roll would've been about 10 less, meaning 1 less point of base healing + most of the time one less DoS, so 2 points less healing than your medic does on average.

On another note, you know that you get -10 for each critical damage taken? A character with 5 critical damage would require a -50 medicae roll, quickly removing most of your bonuses :p

You might also get a -10 penalty on heavily injured characters, though I'm not entirely sure that's the case.

.113 said:

Just to clarify, and I've pulled out my OW rules now: its meaningful to note that the idea of "treated" wounds is no longer present. No matter what, you can only have one First Aid action performed on your character per day. But it can be confirmed that the Medic can perform First Aid on multiple characters.

Instead of "these wounds have been treated by the First Aid action," its just an idea that "this PC has had First Aid performed on them in the last 24 hours." Its actually possible to solely use First Aid as a means of healing a character, given enough days (i.e. you don't actually need to use extended care after the first use of the First Aid action).

This is significantly different from how it works in the previous 40k line (at leas up through DW, I haven't run a game of BC).

As far as the usefulness of medics: as others have said, they get +5 int, and cheap access to pretty much all healing related talents/skills. Ultimately it comes down to how useful you find their comrade abilities to be (because after enough XP is earned, that +5 int isn't going to be that meaningful). They can improve their ability to make use of Extended Care (and thus makes them excellent healers out of combat), and most interestingly, the ablity to have comrades perform medicae checks at range (remember, First Aid is a Full Action). This is probably the key thing, as it frees up their economy of actions and allows them to aid allies without needlessly exposing themselves to enemy fire.

Overall I'd say they're useful, but by no means "mandatory" (given the removal of the idea of treated/untreated wounds for the First Aid action, the net healing they can perform daily is limited). Fortunately the increase to make degrees of success add to the final result does by all means make medic useful, and First Aid at range has plenty of uses. What would probably determine their usefulness as well is what the GM would provide the party in their absence. Does the GM opt to provide an Advanced Medkit as a part of mission gear? How well staffed are allied medical facilities? If the GM is too lenient in the absence of a Medic, then much of the Medic's usefullness is decreased. Of course, if the GM is too harsh on the matter, then the party will needlessly suffer for the sake of the players actually picking the specialties they want.

KommissarK said:

Doh, my bad :p

That's how it works then. Now I know as well :)

Though I have to admit it seems a bit odd. Imagine putting some stitches on some guy who got shot, then an hour later when the guy unfortunatly gets shot again you're like "nah I did you already".

.113 said:

I think it was an attempt to simplify it because you have to admit, the previous method was a bit odd the first time you read it. If I recall, @.113, you set up a thread about it as well. Its legimitately difficult to understand on the first read, yet it is a critical piece of the game, as being injured is a problem that most certainly will come up.

Personally I'm not sure what to think, but I'm just trying to clarify whats in the book.

I think the big difference is that First Aid can indeed be used on a day to day basis as a means of healing, which definitely speeds it up. So in the end, I'm not sure which is "better." It might be justifiable in the sense that during your average day to day of war you might only see one or two big battles that result in single big encounters, whereas with DH investigations that finally result in "raiding the compound" or DW kill team missions, you might have a bit more of a running battle/series of encounters.

Yeah, the previous healing methods were a bit complex, mostly because they didn't use any clear explanation at the same time, but rather spread it out in several different places (combined with a bad index which made it worse).

I did like the "treated" wounds actually, it made sense. I also liked the change from healing heavily injured and critical injuries only through a weekly basis. It did make you "out of the game" for far too long.

But this once every 24 hours thing, it removes the usefulness, or perhaps "coolness", of a medic who runs through fire and bullets, mid battle, to give you first aid. I'll imagine there is much less "on your feet soldier, the fight isn't over yet" from our medics, but more a "if you're more or less not dying, we wait until after the battle to heal you".

After all, if I take 4 damage in the first rounds of combat, and he heals 7, there will be 3 points wasted that might have been really useful before the next day.

In addition, being able to use your comrade to heal someone next to him, instead of yourself, with a -10 penalty seems like you just gave yourself another 1 point of healing wasted. Good in a really dangerous situation where the target is about to die otherwise, but if it's not an emergency it seems just wasteful.

Basically a tech-priest or Operator would easily become just as good as a medic now in my opinion (or at least close enough), if you don't count the fact they don't start with the medkit.

To be fair, the original beta for OW had the older style Medicae rules in place (Int bonus healed on lightly wounded, 1 point healed on heavily or critically wounded characters), so the comrade order was a bit more useful.

In all honesty, you "should" be able to maintain the old style of medicae checks without radically altering the system. In which case Medic is still about as "useful." A Specialization really is just a minor stat bonus, aptitudes, starting gear, and comrade orders (not to gamify the system too much). Aptitudes and gear are mitigated by adding more XP or succeeding on more Logistics rolls. Stat bonuses while nice, tend to be trivial when < 10. The big thing is specialization of skills brought about by XP efficiency (i.e. a person playing a Medic is more likely to max out Medicae than a Heavy Gunner) and the comrade abilities. The point I'm trying to make is that since anyone can pick up Medicae, and the talents that are associated with it, it is very difficult to claim a Medic as a mandatory character (@.113 not that I'm saying you are saying this, as far as I can tell you are not at all, just trying to approach the party balance argument). Now, by all means, someone in the party should be trained in Medicae (I would almost go as far as to claim that this is indeed mandatory for any party that wishes to survive).

In either OW's Medicae rules or the older style, overall success on the First Aid check is paramount. Failing that check is about as equally disasterous, but leans towards being more penalizing in the old style of the rule (as you could only make one First Aid check on a set of untreated wounds). OW removes the necessity of making this check and gives the added bonus of extra DoSs adding in, but counters the old system by making it once per day.

The problem I've seen while using the older system is that you eventually wind up with a "minimum number of wounds to even matter" mentality. That unless an attack can put them past a point beyond where the healer can bring them back to, then an attack is more or less pointless. Obviously, multiple attacks can drain party resources as well, but the wound totals in this system are such a fine line between "perfectly healthy," "injured," "badly injured," and "OHMYGODIMHOLDINGMYGUTSINWITHBOTHHANDS!"

The newer method at least allows for some leeway with regards to how much damage the party can sustain.

One modification I would suggest, or at least find interesting, is have the total healed by First Aid also be modified by degrees of failure. That is to say, you always heal IB when using First Aid (even if you fail), but it gets decreased by failure. That way its important to roll well, but at least having the training can help prevent bad things.

Yeah, I agree a party should have a person trained in medicae without a doubt.

As for our regiment, our GM gave us the Die Hard thingy which grants us Toughness as an Aptitude. For a Sergeant and Heavy weapons guy at least, this means 1 "free" aptitude that can be put in Intelligence for quite an easier time getting that medicae to the max. But even without it, it's not that expensive for just one skill so all in all I think anyone can do it.

I might add that our previous group was also Drop troopers, which might be why I have this view of the newer healing system. We didn't end up in one fight a day, rather we had several battles each time we went on a mission. We also came from a fortress world giving us a harder time to back down from fights with our favored enemies (orks) and since that campaign was an all out ork invasion… things didn't get easier for us.

Add in the fact that orks are really hard to kill with their True grit ability…

In the first combat, before we even landed on the planet, I lost my eye to a righteous fury rolled from the 3rd ork I engaged in melee. On his next strike I landed on the same critical (rending 4, head) by "natural means" and had to roll another toughness or loose my other eye. I make it, keeping my only eye left. After we finish up the combat, get some improvised medical attention we need to take a valkyrie down to the planet. In mid air we get shot down and have to jump out, loosing one of our weapon specialists (me being the other) in the valkyrie going down. We land in the middle of the jungle and need to get to him and see if hes still alive. The other members being a sergeant, medic and tech-priest leaves me (one eye, no awareness skill yet) as the scout. Long story short, we find him, go through the jungle for days to get back to the city we were supposed to aid so we can start the real campaign.

Our droptrooper style left us behind enemy lines a lot, and usually inside hostile and completely overrun orkinfested cities. A battle a day was impossible.

So, we lost a few guys during the campaign (only once to friendly fire.. guess we can't blame that on the orks). We went with untreated and treated wounds that could be treated again in the next 24 hours, but would regularily need new medical attention and by the end of the campaign the 3 out of 5 characters from the original group had all been running around with 0 fate for a while.

Our new group should play as line infantry and here I can imagine that the 24 hour regular healing might work better. During the long hours and days of waiting for battle, we should be able to heal up in time for the next battle. But yeah, doesn't need to be a medic, aside for the fact they start with a medkit. If we go with another specialisation and don't manage to requisition one in time, things might be bad. So we'll go with a medic still :p

yeah these reponses help a bit, I still dont really see them being that useful becuase you can just have the medicae skill and give it to anyone. Other groups get bonuses to int and whatever else is needed for medics s its not that good.

This is why in my group we play it so the medic has a "health pool" that gives them a certain amount of health per day that they can heal. this also makes them think more strategically about how often they heal and who needs it more. the health pool is 2d10+int per day.

Myself I'm trying to build a less DW 'uber Squad vs. all', and more of a procedural type game. So, if a PC takes a hit, then rather than deal with it themselves they can just yell "Medic!" The mechanic I'm currently trying to build is a Logistics Test using the Mission Gear modifiers with a cumulative -10 penalty for each request made by the Squad to its Regiment, covering medics, ammo/fuel resupply, artillery support, reinforcements and so on. DoS/F change the outcome, so for instance, a request for a medic with 3 degrees of Fail would mean that, after a minute or so, some mook with a medikit runs up and asks what the problem is. 5+ DoS and they get the EMH treatment.

Obviously, having their own Medic is still very useful, since it saves their uses for other things, and the one Medicae Test per person every 24hrs does mean that a maxed skill is really useful, plus the Medicae Auxilia comrade ability is really useful with +10 Assistance and permitting Extended Care for an unlimited number of patients - I think I'll cap it at "everyone that'll fit under one roof, of IntB radius."

As it's written a medic is probably more useful to a larger party than a small one. Although I can also see a use the wider use, healing comrades and NPC's.

I have a couple of questions with how it works now. Firstly, is stabilising a critically wounded character included in the 24hour limit? It shouldn't be and that's enough reason to have a medic around in a dangerous game like OW.

Secondly does a successful diagnosticatior use actually help further First Aid tests? I can see that it would useful in other situations than directly healing but I'd normally give people bonuses to tests if they had correct supporting information but it's not mentioned in the description of the Diagnoticator or in the difficulty of the Medicae tests. If it doesn't mention it anywhere I'd be inclinded to give a+10 for a successful test and an additional +5 per DoS (up to +30 max).

Personally I can a lot people using house rules until it's gone into more detail, I think there's a good chance of that being included in Hammer of the Emperor if they flesh out the specialisation. The simple answer would be that a character that had first aid used on them cannot be treated again untill they are wounded again. More realisticaly, once treated they cannot cannot be treated again untill they are wounded again and this cannot remove more wounds than they have taken since being treated.

Face Eater said:

It all comes to down how big the player group is and what sort of game they are running. In a smaller game, the medic eats into combat potential so isn't as useful as a Techpriest or even a psyker, however in a bigger group where there is already sufficient combat potential and where there are more squad members to be injured (comrades included!) then the medic starts to shine. 
Similarly in a low-tech regiment the medicae can take over from a techpriest. In an armoured regiment, the types of weapons that can take out your vehicles will likely instantly kill your characters so a medic becomes less useful than operates and techpriests.

Ultimately everything has its own niche and uses in a group.

Kasatka said:

yeah, our group has me as the GM and 4 PCs.

.113 said:

Righteous Fury crits are temporary, are they not? You should have regained the use of both eyes if you passed the Toughness Test vs. the "real" crit damage.

Edit: Just looked over Righteous Fury rules and it doesn't mention they're temporary at all. I wonder where I got that idea… hmm

Flail-Bot said:

Actually I thought it was something like that too at first and have heard it mentioned before but can't find anything on it anywhere either. It was kinda funny as I was being a bit arrogant and when he says he hits, I can't remember if I already dodged or just failed but I was just like "Ah well whatever bring it", he says it a head hit, same reaction and he says OOOOOH Righteous Fury and I do the same reaction cause I thought it couldn't be anything too serious,

Then he says "roll thoughness or lose your eye" and I'm more like "WHAAAAT???" , then looks at my 31 Toughness… Roll a 98 or similar… Bye bye eye. Of course the next attack, head hit again, and I count the damage and see it comes to 4… (same result)… Say WAIT it COULD be the same eye! and he rolls random, and it isn't… Got a bit nervous :p

Sent on scouting missions with so much penalties wasn't too fun either :p

Anyways to get back onto the medic thingy, I'm pretty sure that the 24 hour limit is for First aid, which is the actual healing part. Stoping someone from bleeding to death is just a medicae roll. As for Diagnosis, I'm pretty sure you can see the guy is bleeding because he was shot by an Ork :p other than that, I think it would, at least in theory, grant some bonus on treatment for any kinds of diseases or similar.

Keep in mind, big group or not, the Medic has the ability to heal with his comrade at range, and in addition START with the medikit. So unless you, as players, are allowed to buy things with the 30 points for regiment creation, and make sure you have one in each group, you will need a medic to start with a medikit. No matter how good you are at medicae with your other type of character, I'm sure it'll be severe penalties for having no equipment to use at all.

That being said, I'm pretty sure the best medic ever would have to be a tech-priest with one of those arms and a megabrainthingy (cerebral implants or something)..

.113 said:

It depends really. The techpriest may get to an overall higher Intelligence+Medicae bonus, but he doesnt have any comrade perks to allow it to be done remotely or to assist with extended care for large numbers of patients.
The magos biologis (what techpriests that focus on matters of the flesh are called) would be better at first aid applications that heal the highest number of wounds, and extended care thats garunteed to work, but the Medic will be a better general purpose medicae user in the field.