According to the EotE Core Rule Book, page 219: "A character may attempt one Medicine check per week per Critical Injury."

So if you have multiple crits, you can only heal 1 crit in that session/campaign (as long as the session/campaign last less than a week)?

Or you dunk em in a Bacta tank and do a Resilience check every 24 hrs.

According to the EotE Core Rule Book, page 219: "A character may attempt one Medicine check per week per Critical Injury."

So if you have multiple crits, you can only heal 1 crit in that session/campaign (as long as the session/campaign last less than a week)?

No, that isn't what it is saying. You can make a check for each Crit, but can't check for that crit more than once a week. "Check per week per injury"

According to the EotE Core Rule Book, page 219: "A character may attempt one Medicine check per week per Critical Injury."

So if you have multiple crits, you can only heal 1 crit in that session/campaign (as long as the session/campaign last less than a week)?

No, that isn't what it is saying. You can make a check for each Crit, but can't check for that crit more than once a week. "Check per week per injury"

Thank you! I knew it didn't sound right.

In my campaign, the players sometimes don't have the means, resources, or opportunity to properly heal so crits can stick around.

Sometimes the time in between sessions is more lengthy because one of them is in the hospital.

Even still, our Jedi carried a crit over a few sessions and worked it in to character building.

Kallabecca is correct - you may attempt one Medicine check per week per critical injury. In other words, you may make as many checks per week as you have outstanding injuries (but no more than one check per week for any single injury). So if you suffer three critical injuries today, in one week you may attempt three Medicine checks - one for the first injury, one for the second, and one for the third. Each injury will be healed (or not) independently, based on the results of the individual checks.

There are some related questions that the book never explicitly answers, however, and it is up to the GM to make a call on these matters:

1. Critical injuries can be healed by Medicine checks (made by anyone). An injured character may also attempt one Resilience check per week to heal one critical injury on his own (and possibly heal extra injuries with Triumph results).

Can he still attempt the Resilience check to heal an injury that a Medicine check failed to heal this week? i.e. Can he attempt both checks for the same injury in case the first doesn't work?

The book doesn't explicitly say either way. I've personally ruled that he can make both attempts; but that's just my own call.

2. "A character may attempt one Medicine check per week per Critical Injury." This statement is ambiguous between (A) "After the first attempt he must wait a week to make a second attempt, and after the second attempt he must wait a week to make a third attempt, and so forth," versus (B) "At least a week must pass before the first attempt, and then at least another week must pass before the second attempt, and so forth."

The difference is that reading (A) allows the first Medicine check to be made at any time (potentially the very same round in which the injury is inflicted). A week's wait is only necessary in order to make a second attempt if that first one fails. Whereas (B) require that a full week pass between the time the injury is inflicted and the first attempt to heal it. In other words, aside from access to a bacta tank or something, (B) implies that all critical injuries must be carried for a minimum of one full week.

This distinction is very important, especially in regards to effects like Horrific Injury and Temporarily Lame which significantly hinder the character until the critical injury is healed. Nevertheless, the book never clarifies whether (A) or (B) is the correct reading.

2. "A character may attempt one Medicine check per week per Critical Injury." This statement is ambiguous between (A) "After the first attempt he must wait a week to make a second attempt, and after the second attempt he must wait a week to make a third attempt, and so forth," versus (B) "At least a week must pass before the first attempt, and then at least another week must pass before the second attempt, and so forth."

The difference is that reading (A) allows the first Medicine check to be made at any time (potentially the very same round in which the injury is inflicted). A week's wait is only necessary in order to make a second attempt if that first one fails. Whereas (B) require that a full week pass between the time the injury is inflicted and the first attempt to heal it. In other words, aside from access to a bacta tank or something, (B) implies that all critical injuries must be carried for a minimum of one full week.

This distinction is very important, especially in regards to effects like Horrific Injury and Temporarily Lame which significantly hinder the character until the critical injury is healed. Nevertheless, the book never clarifies whether (A) or (B) is the correct reading.

Actually, you are totally changing the meaning. You don't have to wait a week to try and be cured of the critical injury. Think of it this way, it doesn't take a week between the time you are shot and the time a doctor can take you into surgery to put you back together. So, as long as the combat encounter is over and the GM adjudicates that there is time for medicine checks, then you can be attempted to be cured of the injury, right then and there. So, there is nothing wrong with the statement in the book.

Can he still attempt the Resilience check to heal an injury that a Medicine check failed to heal this week? i.e. Can he attempt both checks for the same injury in case the first doesn't work?

The book doesn't explicitly say either way. I've personally ruled that he can make both attempts; but that's just my own call.

This is why I love this forum. It helps me think through problems from my group.

I treat the Resilience roll and the Medicine rolls as completely independent from each other so I allow both as well. Presumably the rolls are being made by different characters anyway, unless the doctor in the group is always the only one getting shot up.

"A character may attempt one Medicine check per week per Critical Injury." I interpret this statement a little differently to mean just because your character failed the medicine check doesn't mean another character will. This lets multiple characters attempt a medicine check for the same injury in case the first one fails. I also only allow another character to roll if they have a higher Medicine skill than the previous medic. Yes, it does detract from the harshness of Critical injuries, but the first critical injury ever rolled in my campaign was Blindness and that was during the very first fight of an ongoing story and I didn't feel like hamstringing the player that badly at that point. (Now maybe, but not then.)

In practice all that this amounts to is an extra medical check among the characters since only two of them have Medicine trained anyway. And if they both fail they still have to wait until they can get to a medical facility to get checked out which won't happen until after the adventure.

2. "A character may attempt one Medicine check per week per Critical Injury." This statement is ambiguous between (A) "After the first attempt he must wait a week to make a second attempt, and after the second attempt he must wait a week to make a third attempt, and so forth," versus (B) "At least a week must pass before the first attempt, and then at least another week must pass before the second attempt, and so forth."

The difference is that reading (A) allows the first Medicine check to be made at any time (potentially the very same round in which the injury is inflicted). A week's wait is only necessary in order to make a second attempt if that first one fails. Whereas (B) require that a full week pass between the time the injury is inflicted and the first attempt to heal it. In other words, aside from access to a bacta tank or something, (B) implies that all critical injuries must be carried for a minimum of one full week.

This distinction is very important, especially in regards to effects like Horrific Injury and Temporarily Lame which significantly hinder the character until the critical injury is healed. Nevertheless, the book never clarifies whether (A) or (B) is the correct reading.

Actually, you are totally changing the meaning. You don't have to wait a week to try and be cured of the critical injury. Think of it this way, it doesn't take a week between the time you are shot and the time a doctor can take you into surgery to put you back together. So, as long as the combat encounter is over and the GM adjudicates that there is time for medicine checks, then you can be attempted to be cured of the injury, right then and there. So, there is nothing wrong with the statement in the book.

Agreed. The golden hour is when you want to get on a critical injury. The one interpretation means I get my arm blown off and no one can do anything for me for a week? That makes zero sense.

Actually, getting your arm blown off and having to wait a week does make sense. From a certain point of view. Perhaps infection set in and further tissue had to be removed, or the cybernetic implant didn't work and must be recalibrated. You had a reaction to the Anestesia or othe complication. This goes for other wounds as well. Having a gun shot could require several surgeries to fix the damage.

Also, try thinking outside the box. Perhaps other things are going on the prevent another surgery. Base is out of bacta, droids are on the fritz. Don't think of a critical hit as always such a bad thing. It could lead to a better story. Perhaps your doctors can't help so you have to sneak into an imperial installation to do the work.

Actually, getting your arm blown off and having to wait a week does make sense. From a certain point of view. Perhaps infection set in and further tissue had to be removed, or the cybernetic implant didn't work and must be recalibrated. You had a reaction to the Anestesia or othe complication. This goes for other wounds as well. Having a gun shot could require several surgeries to fix the damage.

Also, try thinking outside the box. Perhaps other things are going on the prevent another surgery. Base is out of bacta, droids are on the fritz. Don't think of a critical hit as always such a bad thing. It could lead to a better story. Perhaps your doctors can't help so you have to sneak into an imperial installation to do the work.

That sounds like a description of why the first roll failed, not why one can't be attempted.

Actually, getting your arm blown off and having to wait a week does make sense. From a certain point of view. Perhaps infection set in and further tissue had to be removed, or the cybernetic implant didn't work and must be recalibrated. You had a reaction to the Anestesia or othe complication. This goes for other wounds as well. Having a gun shot could require several surgeries to fix the damage.

Also, try thinking outside the box. Perhaps other things are going on the prevent another surgery. Base is out of bacta, droids are on the fritz. Don't think of a critical hit as always such a bad thing. It could lead to a better story. Perhaps your doctors can't help so you have to sneak into an imperial installation to do the work.

I agree with 2P51, this is the explanation for the failed roll, not the lack of a roll.

Actually, you are totally changing the meaning.

I'm not "changing the meaning", I'm claiming the meaning is unknown. But I assume what you meant was that you think I'm seeing an ambiguity where there is none.

I'm not going to debate whether the statement is, indeed, ambiguous. It simply is, that's a linguistic fact. You can trust me on this - I do this sort of thing professionally.

You don't have to wait a week to try and be cured of the critical injury.

As I said, that's one legitimate reading. It isn't, however, the only one.

"A character may attempt one Medicine check per week per Critical Injury." This can be reasonably read two different ways:

(A) "A week must pass for each check."

(B) "A week must pass between checks."

Both of these are perfectly legitimate readings of the language in the book.

"A week for each check" means that if you're injured on day 1, you can attempt the first Medicine check on day 8, the second on day 15, and so on.

"A week between checks" means that if you're injured on day 1, you can attempt the first Medicine check whenever you wish (including day 1), the second one week after the first (whenever that was), the third one week after the second (whenever that was), and so on.

The one interpretation means I get my arm blown off and no one can do anything for me for a week? That makes zero sense.

It makes as much sense as any other heavily abstracted, overly simplified model of reality.

One interpretation means that you can attempt to heal a critical injury right away. Presumably success means something like, "It looked worse than it was. Rub some dirt on it, you're fine."

But if an injury can potentially be healed right away, why would you need to wait a whole week to try again if you fail? The only "narrative" explanation would be something like, "It's serious and it will take significant time to recover. An injury this serious can't just be kissed better. Keep it clean and we'll see how it looks a week from now; but it might take even longer - no promises."

The other interpretation (which is also a perfectly legitimate reading of what's in the book) simply assumes that all critical injuries (note the word "critical") fall into that second category. No magic instant fixes for a critical injurt, it's going to take a few days at least.

So the Dr. prescribes pill that say one a day and since I've already started my day when they're prescribed clearly I should wait until tomorrow to take my medicine the first time. Good grief.

As an aside (and this is part of what's involved in interpreting language), it's easy to imagine an author having had either meaning in mind.

One author might have wanted it to be possible to heal injuries right away (to facilitate faster, more casual play, et cetera); but added the one week between additional attempts rule to keep people from just rolling again and again until they succeed (thereby making the rolls irrelevant).

Another author might have wanted to emphasise that critical injuries as serious things - that you can't just wipe them away five minutes later. So he might have intended such as passage to mean that all critical injuries (normally) last at least a week, thereby forcing characters to endure, respect, and fear them.

So it's easy to imagine why different people might have wanted to say either of these things. Thus, you can't even appeal to "what was obviously meant" as a solution to the ambiguity. Either version could have reasonably been meant.

You are forgetting the 3rd meaning. A week is Sunday through Saturday. If you get an injury on Tuesday and fail the roll on Friday, the next check can be made on Monday because that is a new week.

I'm not sure if you're joking about the language or trying to make fun of me. But either way you're actually helping my argument, so thank you.

Technically speaking, you're correct - that is (in isolation) a third way you can legitimately read the phrase. The difference is that in context this third interpretation makes no sense. It can be dismissed, due to context, as obviously not being what was intended.

My point is that you can't do this with either of the two interpretations I spelled out. Both make sense in context and neither is "crazy" or "stupid". Thus, you can't eliminate either on the grounds that is was obviously unintended.

Whether or not anyone wants to admit it, there is a real uncertainty here. Choosing either interpretation to use in your game is merely a personal call - you can't claim either version to be the rule-as-written.

I'm not sure if you're joking about the language or trying to make fun of me. But either way you're actually helping my argument, so thank you.

Technically speaking, you're correct - that is (in isolation) a third way you can legitimately read the phrase. The difference is that in context this third interpretation makes no sense. It can be dismissed, due to context, as obviously not being what was intended.

My point is that you can't do this with either of the two interpretations I spelled out. Both make sense in context and neither is "crazy" or "stupid". Thus, you can't eliminate either on the grounds that is was obviously unintended.

Whether or not anyone wants to admit it, there is a real uncertainty here. Choosing either interpretation to use in your game is merely a personal call - you can't claim either version to be the rule-as-written.

I'm not sure which context you are seeing that invalidates my proposed reading while not doing the same for the reading that you must wait a week before even attempting to heal.

I am glad to see this discussion here, in fact I suggested the guys at the Order 66 to dedicate an epsiode to crits and healing. How do crits work in your game? How do you play them narratively as well as mechanically? How do you heal them? What other options are there as opposed to healing yourself or your party members? How does bacta work? Or hospitals? Etc. I think there is a lot to be gained from an indepth look.

The key to both the problems below is that the skill checks don't happen in a vacuum. The GM is called upon to rule the situation sensibly, and to decide things like how long the skill checks take and what must be in place for the action to be performed. Preparations must be made, etc.

1. Critical injuries can be healed by Medicine checks (made by anyone). An injured character may also attempt one Resilience check per week to heal one critical injury on his own (and possibly heal extra injuries with Triumph results).

Can he still attempt the Resilience check to heal an injury that a Medicine check failed to heal this week? i.e. Can he attempt both checks for the same injury in case the first doesn't work?

The book doesn't explicitly say either way. I've personally ruled that he can make both attempts; but that's just my own call.

Your personal ruling is the way the rules line it out. Nowhere are the Resilience and Medicine checks called out as mutually exclusive. The Resilience check can be made right before a Medicine check, for example, without the rules suggesting anything to contrary.

Also note, in the rules, the words "per week" are absent from the Natural Healing rules. Instead, the rules explicitly say "At the end of each full week of rest..." More on that below.

2. "A character may attempt one Medicine check per week per Critical Injury." This statement is ambiguous between (A) "After the first attempt he must wait a week to make a second attempt, and after the second attempt he must wait a week to make a third attempt, and so forth," versus (B) "At least a week must pass before the first attempt, and then at least another week must pass before the second attempt, and so forth."

I think a plain reading is the best reading. Any time one has to go into convoluted explanations of how an interpretation might make sense, they are usually wrong. Trust me, I have been guilty of this myself. If you think it's worth a rules question to dispel any ambiguity, there's always the Rules Question function here on the site, but I don't think there's any ambiguity on these rules. One check per week means, essentially, "one this week, one next week, and so on."

Here's some context:

AoR p 232: "At the end of each full week of rest, the character may attempt a Resilience check to recover from one Critical Injury."

AoR p 233: "Since lingering Critical Injuries make subsequent injury more and more dangerous, they should be treated as quickly and efficiently as possible." Nothing mentioned here about waiting an entire week. It'd make sense, if that was the rule that one had to wait a week, that the book would say something here about that... "Get it taken care of, as soon as you can after that waiting period." But it doesn't. The idea is "get it taken care of ASAP!"

The key to both the problems below is that the skill checks don't happen in a vacuum. The GM is called upon to rule the situation sensibly, and to decide things like how long the skill checks take and what must be in place for the action to be performed. Preparations must be made, etc.

1. Critical injuries can be healed by Medicine checks (made by anyone). An injured character may also attempt one Resilience check per week to heal one critical injury on his own (and possibly heal extra injuries with Triumph results).

Can he still attempt the Resilience check to heal an injury that a Medicine check failed to heal this week? i.e. Can he attempt both checks for the same injury in case the first doesn't work?

The book doesn't explicitly say either way. I've personally ruled that he can make both attempts; but that's just my own call.

Your personal ruling is the way the rules line it out. Nowhere are the Resilience and Medicine checks called out as mutually exclusive. The Resilience check can be made right before a Medicine check, for example, without the rules suggesting anything to contrary.

Also note, in the rules, the words "per week" are absent from the Natural Healing rules. Instead, the rules explicitly say "At the end of each full week of rest..." More on that below.

2. "A character may attempt one Medicine check per week per Critical Injury." This statement is ambiguous between (A) "After the first attempt he must wait a week to make a second attempt, and after the second attempt he must wait a week to make a third attempt, and so forth," versus (B) "At least a week must pass before the first attempt, and then at least another week must pass before the second attempt, and so forth."

I think a plain reading is the best reading. Any time one has to go into convoluted explanations of how an interpretation might make sense, they are usually wrong. Trust me, I have been guilty of this myself. If you think it's worth a rules question to dispel any ambiguity, there's always the Rules Question function here on the site, but I don't think there's any ambiguity on these rules. One check per week means, essentially, "one this week, one next week, and so on."

Here's some context:

AoR p 232: "At the end of each full week of rest, the character may attempt a Resilience check to recover from one Critical Injury."

AoR p 233: "Since lingering Critical Injuries make subsequent injury more and more dangerous, they should be treated as quickly and efficiently as possible." Nothing mentioned here about waiting an entire week. It'd make sense, if that was the rule that one had to wait a week, that the book would say something here about that... "Get it taken care of, as soon as you can after that waiting period." But it doesn't. The idea is "get it taken care of ASAP!"

The second quote from the book is exactly the context that makes the "must wait a week" reading seem "crazy", or possibly even "stupid".

EDIT

I don't mean to come off as antagonistic. I really get where you are coming from with the multiple ways to read something. I was only half joking in regards to the days of the week interpretation. That is what I thought it meant the very first time I read it, but as I continued reading trying to comprehend everything, and after playing once or twice, I realized it just meant that a week needs to pass between attempts.

I think I'm in the camp of "wait a week before trying to heal a critical injury the first time." For example, say you got your arm broken. The doc sets the bone and puts a cast or a sling on you. This first aid removes some of the Wounds you got in the process of breaking the arm, but it will immediately re-break if you try to do anything strenuous with it (hence the cast). Then, after a week goes by, check to see if your arm is healed up enough to take the cast off. You can't really use the arm in the interim, so the penalty remains until that time.

Even if you got a prosthetic to replace the arm, the interface between your body and the new arm is going to take some time to heal after surgery. I imagine you might tear your new arm right out of your body if you tried to use it immediately.

I suppose there are other example scenarios where not waiting a week for the injury to heal might make sense. I can't think of any right at the moment, though.

It seems clear that you have to rest a full week, then make a single check for Resilience to heal a single crit (not one check for each crit). Meanwhile, you can make one check for each crit when using Medicine. That makes sense, because people heal faster with medical care. If you have a bacta tank (or oil bath) you can heal even faster than that.

All of this assumes that a Triumph on a First Aid / Field Repairs check didn't eliminate the crit before it 'set in'.

In my own game I've been limiting it to a single crit healed per week even with medicine checks, so that they have to take some more down time and eat through more of their supplies.

I think I'm in the camp of "wait a week before trying to heal a critical injury the first time." For example, say you got your arm broken. The doc sets the bone and puts a cast or a sling on you. This first aid removes some of the Wounds you got in the process of breaking the arm, but it will immediately re-break if you try to do anything strenuous with it (hence the cast). Then, after a week goes by, check to see if your arm is healed up enough to take the cast off. You can't really use the arm in the interim, so the penalty remains until that time.

Even if you got a prosthetic to replace the arm, the interface between your body and the new arm is going to take some time to heal after surgery. I imagine you might tear your new arm right out of your body if you tried to use it immediately.

I suppose there are other example scenarios where not waiting a week for the injury to heal might make sense. I can't think of any right at the moment, though.

In the real world, I would agree with this. There are some good points up there.

However, this is Star Wars. We're talking about a several-hour swim in a bacta tank, or a small amount of time under a medical droid's care, to heal wounds that would take at least a week to heal naturally. So we're not talking about setting a broke arm and splinting it...we're talking about injecting and imbibing biochemicals that speed up the body's natural healing process (or, sometimes, simply installing some new hardware to replace what was lost) and it takes maybe hours, not days or weeks. It's basically like magic.

But what to do when the players want to try and heal a critical injury right here and now because the book doesn't say they have to wait? This is where the GM comes in and says, "Not yet."

Like so: "No, you can't really attempt to heal that critical injury right now while you're trying to hide from vicious native reptavians in a dirty, bug-infested hole. All you have is leaves, a blaster, and the equivalent of steroids, bandaids and painkillers. You can try it later, when you aren't as pressed for time, and when you have at least halfway-decent facilities." And then once the characters are able to attempt the healing, their check will determine how long it takes.

Maybe, with a low number of Successes or perhaps with enough Threat, the healing actually takes a really long time because bacta doesn't work on this kind of wound, or the character is allergic to bacta (failure + Despair), or something. Now it's going to take at least 3 weeks for that broken arm to heal, and that's if you don't engage in any strenuous activity. But GMs and players are free to sensibly apply the rules to the situation, and decide how long something takes. A medicine check could represent a week's worth of medical work, for instance. But nothing in the book suggests you've gotta wait a week before even tending to a patient. That is just a little bit ludicrous.

But nothing in the book suggests you've gotta wait a week before even tending to a patient. That is just a little bit ludicrous.

No one ever said you did. In fact you just made the point yourself:

A medicine check could represent a week's worth of medical work, for instance.

In narrative terms, a character can "tend to" another's wounds whenever he wishes in whatever manner he wishes. What is, however, suggested by one reasonable reading of the rules is that (under normal circumstances) a week must pass before this can have the mechanical effect of actually eliminating the wounds.

For example, a character could suffer, say, the "Crippled" critical injury resulting in increased difficulty of all checks involving the affected limb until the injury is healed. A medic is free to describe himself as "tending to" the wound as soon as he wishes in whatever fashion he wishes.

However, as you just suggested, this does not always mean that any mechanical result would immediately follow. Indeed, the rules arguably imply that the medic can't actually do anything to eliminate the aforementioned penalty to checks involving the limb until at least a week has passed. i.e. He has to wait that long before he can mechanically (and not just narratively) attempt to heal the injury. Everything he does in the interim is only "fluff". And when he eventually does make the check, you can then describe it as representing the culmination of a week of effort to mend a serious injury that required significant recovery time.