I know that there have been other discussions regarding this but I am still not clear on the mechanics of having critical hits healed.

Let's say a PC suffers a critical injury like "Crippled" in an encounter. The chart says "One of the target's limbs (selected by the GM) is crippled until healed or replaced. Increase difficulty of all checks that require use of that limb by one." At the end of the encounter or even during the encounter a "medic" successfully performs a "medicine" check to heal the crit. If I read the rules correctly this "removes" the crit. This seems almost too easy that a character who otherwise had such an injury would be up and running again without any consequences or lingering effects of the injury. Is this the intent of the rule? I understand the healing process if the medicine check fails, I think, it's the success in doing so in the middle of/end of an encounter that has me confused. It seems that maybe the successful medicine check would remove the +10 crit that normally would be added to any subsequent crits, but that the penalty for the crit, although now "healed" is not permanent but will take some time to fully heal. I just cant' see a nasty wound that almost severs or severely injures a limb being healed in the heat of battle with a medic kit to the point that a PC would be up an about as if it were just a "flesh wound".

Any clarification or thoughts would be appreciated.

"What are you crying about? It's not that bad! Some Synthflesh so ya stop leaking, and a power-splint so ya don't make it worse but can still move, and a little high end painkillers so ya don't care. See? All better. Don't go screaming like that again unless you've got parts missing... and if you do, bring em with you cause I don't go playing hide n go seek with limbs."

Yeah - If the Medicine check was that successful, the "crippled" result may not have been as bad as they first thought... The character can use the leg normally, but the rest of the group can tease him about being a pansy.

The above two posts are an interesting way of looking at it narratively.

Another post talked about having the healing of a Crit, especially a more difficult Crit, take more than one round if the Med check is made during combat. So for a Hard Crit like Crippled, maybe it takes the injured and the party medic out of combat for an additional round or two while he applies the quick-cast from his medpack.

Also, you could say that the Crit is now healed, e.g. they got a splint on it/stabilized it, but for the rest of the encounter/mission, there's a setback on checks due to limited movement/discomfort. Even without the setback, the narrative part of the game should reflect that the limb is still a little out of whack until it has a chance to heal a bit (like the next hyperspace trip).

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IMHO, the 2 keys to something like this are:

1) make sure everyone is ok is what you decide, that it doesn't detract from the fun of the game. if people aren't having fun, what's the point?

2) be consistent as much as you can be. this applies to both the general logic and "reality" of the in-game universe, and to how the rules are appiedy across both time and players.

Happy Gaming!

Keep in mind that medicine in the Star Wars universe is just that good in most cases. Luke had a fully functioning hand within hours of losing it and getting to a frigate's med bay. And the full size med-kits are described as having almost everything (well, apart from a bacta tank) that a sickbay/hospital would have. So it does make sense that field medicine can be that effective, though it might take a few rounds.

If you feel that doesn't work for your game and you want to use more extended treatment that's fine, but it does make sense in-universe.

I interpreted "healing" a crit as making it not count for subsequent rolls on the crit table. If you lacked a limb due to a crit, you'll still lack a limb after you healed the crit. It just doesn't make you more likely to die any longer.

If the doc also has cybernetic spare parts, he might be able to heal the crit properly (remove all of its permanent effects)

This is how I understand it, anyway.

Yes, there are two components to Critical Injuries, and the game does a poor job of spelling out the difference. There aren't even terms for the two different components, so it's tricky to talk about them.

When you roll on the Critical Injury table, the target character acquires two separate things: (1) a Critical Injury of difficulty X to heal and (2) a special debilitating effect of some kind.

The Critical Injury itself (i.e. 1) does nothing except add +10 to future rolls on the Critical Injury table. A character can potentially have several Critical Injuries at once and not be suffering any effects of any kind (other than being more vulnerable to future Critical Injuries).

The is because all the other stuff that Critical Injuries do is tied up in those special debilitating effects. These are caused by suffering Critical Injuries; but they otherwise have (almost) nothing to do with them.

For example:

Suppose a character rolls 88 on the table. This is "(Average) Compromised : Increase difficulty of all skill checks by one until the end of the encounter." This does two things to the character:

1. He acquires a difficulty 2 (Average) Critical Injury. He will suffer +10 on further Critical Injury checks until a future Resilience or Medicine check at difficulty 2 heals this injury. Otherwise the Critical Injury itself and the +10 modifier are permanent.

2. He increases the difficulty of all skill checks by one until the end of the encounter. When the encounter is over, this effect disappears. But (see 1) the Critical Injury that caused it sticks around until healed. The injury and its special effect are separate.

Similarly, suppose a character rolls 101 on the table. This is "(Hard) Maimed : A limb is permanently lost. Unless the target receives a replacement, the target cannot perform actions that would require the use of that limb. All other actions gain a setback die." This does two things to the character:

1. He acquires a difficulty 3 (Hard) Critical Injury. He will suffer +10 on further Critical Injury checks until a future Resilience or Medicine check at difficulty 3 heals this injury. Otherwise the Critical Injury itself and the +10 modifier are permanent.

2. He is unable to perform any action that requires the maimed limb. He adds a setback die to all other (presumably physical?) actions. This is permanent. Even after the Critical Injury itself (see 1) is healed, the limb is still maimed and useless. Healing the Critical Injury itself does nothing to alleviate the debilitating effect of the Maimed injury.

Each result on the Critical Injury table indicates how the special effects of that result end (if they do end). Most end on their own by the end of the encounter. Some are permanent, even after the injury is healed. The only time there is any connection between the injury and the effect is in a few cases where the effect lasts until the injury is healed . This includes effects like At The Brink and Horrific Injury.

I think part of what people should understand is that crits in this game are not the same as crits in other games. You don't get double damage or a chart of all terrible things done to the character. Until you get to the crits on the high end of the table, the crits aren't that bad. The easy end is stuff like having the wind knocked out of you or spraining an ankle. IMHO this is because there are only three states of being in Star Wars. Alive and fine, missing a hand, and dead. I feel that this is a balance issue, do to how easy it is to roll a crit, and to give the proper feel for a Star Wars game.

All of the crits on the table, except for losing a limb (or stat) or dead, have a limited effect that goes away when the crit is healed or before. Crit effects 1-90 all end at the end of the encounter or sooner. These aren't that bad. Even the high end of 70-90 is Staggard, Winded, and Compromised. These are effects for the character having the wind knocked out of them or are knocked off their A game. In other games this could be an easy roll, not an almost max unmodified roll.

How about the Hard crits of 91-125, which most you need viscious or a previous existing crit to even roll. Maimed (The Star Wars trope of losing a hand) is the only one that is permenant. The rest state they go away when healed. (Note: I'm AFB and looking at a cheat sheet, so I may be wrong on my facts. Also, I don't believe Blinded and Knocked Senseless don't specifiy how long they last, but I believe that since they don't have a duration they last until the crit is healed. Afterall, Han Solo got over being blind after a while.)

The hardest crits of 126-151 are really the only ones to worry about in this system, which range from a permenat stat loss from gruesome injury (could be seen as something like Grivious's troubled breathing) to dead. One kills you now. One kills you at the end of the next turn. One makes you keep taking damage and rolling crits until either healed or dead.

With the level of medicine in Star Wars, and the heroric nature of the characters, unless you lose a hand or stat, you're either alive or dead. The crits just don't typically represent something that is horiffic and lasts a long time.

Although, don't get me started on the rules for Bleeding Out... I wish that there were rules for removing the crit effect without removing the crit itself. Also, as written, Bleeding Out is less likely to kill if you have a low WT. RAW is that you take a damage every turn and after 5 wounds you roll another crit. Odds are that at some point you'll roll 141+ and die. RAW is also that once you take enough damage (is it twice beyond WT?) that you stop taking any more damage. Someone with a low WT will have to roll the extra crit less times before they simply stop taking damage because they have less wounds to lose.

I think part of what people should understand is that crits in this game are not the same as crits in other games. You don't get double damage or a chart of all terrible things done to the character. Until you get to the crits on the high end of the table, the crits aren't that bad. The easy end is stuff like having the wind knocked out of you or spraining an ankle. IMHO this is because there are only three states of being in Star Wars. Alive and fine, missing a hand, and dead. I feel that this is a balance issue, do to how easy it is to roll a crit, and to give the proper feel for a Star Wars game.

All of the crits on the table, except for losing a limb (or stat) or dead, have a limited effect that goes away when the crit is healed or before. Crit effects 1-90 all end at the end of the encounter or sooner. These aren't that bad. Even the high end of 70-90 is Staggard, Winded, and Compromised. These are effects for the character having the wind knocked out of them or are knocked off their A game. In other games this could be an easy roll, not an almost max unmodified roll.

How about the Hard crits of 91-125, which most you need viscious or a previous existing crit to even roll. Maimed (The Star Wars trope of losing a hand) is the only one that is permenant. The rest state they go away when healed. (Note: I'm AFB and looking at a cheat sheet, so I may be wrong on my facts. Also, I don't believe Blinded and Knocked Senseless don't specifiy how long they last, but I believe that since they don't have a duration they last until the crit is healed. Afterall, Han Solo got over being blind after a while.)

The hardest crits of 126-151 are really the only ones to worry about in this system, which range from a permenat stat loss from gruesome injury (could be seen as something like Grivious's troubled breathing) to dead. One kills you now. One kills you at the end of the next turn. One makes you keep taking damage and rolling crits until either healed or dead.

With the level of medicine in Star Wars, and the heroric nature of the characters, unless you lose a hand or stat, you're either alive or dead. The crits just don't typically represent something that is horiffic and lasts a long time.

Although, don't get me started on the rules for Bleeding Out... I wish that there were rules for removing the crit effect without removing the crit itself. Also, as written, Bleeding Out is less likely to kill if you have a low WT. RAW is that you take a damage every turn and after 5 wounds you roll another crit. Odds are that at some point you'll roll 141+ and die. RAW is also that once you take enough damage (is it twice beyond WT?) that you stop taking any more damage. Someone with a low WT will have to roll the extra crit less times before they simply stop taking damage because they have less wounds to lose.

In that particular instance I would insist on a roll every 5 rounds regardless of whether they had hit the threshold. It makes no sense for them to stop bleeding unless treated or dead.