One of the PCs in the group I GM for has the basic Force Heal power. In the last session, out of combat, she wanted to do it multiple times because she kept rolling dark side symbols, and needed a light side to use the power.

Does it make sense to state that it can be assumed she keeps doing it until she gets light side symbols, assuming there is no time pressure?

I suppose there's no problem... after all, it counts as a stim dose, that's the real cap.

Game mechanics-wise there isn't really any harm - once the power is successfully used, then it's done (counts as a stim dose as Jereru mentioned above). So repeatedly trying to successfully use it isn't a huge deal. It can easily be narratively explained by saying that the Force User is battling the inner panic at seeing her friend injured, and this fear is tainting her concentration, thus she needs to continually calm and refocus, causing the power to take longer to manifest than usual (repeated attempts to manifest is easily explained this way).

You might hand out a little strain on a failure if they want to keep rolling, but yeah, I would totally allow it. In combat too... they are using up their action... just like they fired a blaster and missed.

If there was no time pressure I'd just hand-wave it. Why bother rolling?

If there was no time pressure I'd just hand-wave it. Why bother rolling?

Yeah that was my thought.

You can hand-wave it, but keep it real. The character spends all of her downtime focusing her healing energies on the others, and cannot otherwise meaningfully contribute to the scene at hand.

Well, for Skill checks if you fail and want to try the same Skill again there is a precedent for adding a level of Difficulty to the next roll so you could (and I would) say that if they choose to not use a result it still counts toward the maximum number of heals allowed. So for example, if the first roll is a DSP and they choose not to use it and roll again getting a LSP. However since they choose not to use the first roll that Heal is only worth +4 Wounds and so on.

I would treat this like the D&D equivalent to taking 20. If there's no time constraint or pressure and distractions, they can take their time to focus and become centered then perform the action. But only at the base level.. or potentially at a level of 1 force point per force die. If they want more than that, they have to roll and only get one shot at it. I wouldn't want to waste everyone's time on something simple or on letting the person roll indefinitely for something more challenging.

CWOD (Mage) Flashbacks... Healing was always potentially fraught with danger... in combat or resting. I botched once really badly when healing my wife... and even though I was the primary healer spec, was never really allowed to heal anyone else in the party (sometimes I still would in combat to frowns and held breath). Luckily this mechanic does not exist in FFG's system, but I still prefer to have a roll. We still make it part of the story, it's not just a mechanical roll without description. It's not just a chance to roll the dice... it is an opportunity for more story. We always take chances for more story. I also invite the player to participate in describing or asking about the scene as much as possible, even if it is minor healing of wounds... we don't play it as "you drink a flask and it heals 1d8 hit points", we play it as "the soothing flow of the Force begins to take the pain away and you see the red scrapes fade and the skin mends". Probably takes just as long to tell it, but the description is better and meaningful and if there is advantage or threat, then the story twists a bit, "but in the afterglow of the healing you notice an erratic heartrate." You never got that with a d20 system, or I never got that from a d20 system. Maybe we roll too much, but what you can do with the rolls makes the potential story worth it. As a GM, I wouldn't trade what rolls inspire in me... a creativity that is becoming more powerful all the time. I have learned to adapt faster than I ever have in any other system and actually look forward to encountering things I never saw coming.

You can hand-wave it, but keep it real. The character spends all of her downtime focusing her healing energies on the others, and cannot otherwise meaningfully contribute to the scene at hand.

True, but if there is a "scene at hand", that to me that implies some kind of time pressure, in which case a roll should be required, and failure should have consequences. The OP was asking if there was no time pressure.

Usually the end of a session for me is capped with something like "you guys go back to your daily lives for the next two weeks...". That's what I think of when I think "no time pressure". But if the party is on the run and they find a place to hole up for a couple of hours, they might be safe, but that's still time pressure IMHO. So rather than rolling a lot, I'd just have the player roll once for all the healing they want to do, and maybe apply or remove a bunch of Strain depending on the results of that one roll.

Yeah, every situation is different. I suppose we'd have to establish what, exactly, "no time constraints" actually means are we talking a few hours to burn? A few days? Several weeks? It's gonna be a different answers for each of those. Well...at least for the matter of "hours."

If there is a limited amount of time, ie on a car ride across town, then after the first failure make it a mn easy discipline check to try again. After the second failure make it an Average Discipline check to try again. Keep upping the difficulty until the succeeded or stop trying. Use threat generated to inflict strain on the PC.

In a non time restricted break then probably just assume the basic power is activated, if they want to activate upgrades then they need to roll, and follow the rules above.

I have never tried this or needed it, so it may be too harsh, others will probably have an idea if it is.

Doesn't it say that a Force power is always successfully activated even if you don't get the points needed to trigger specific effects? If so, then even a use of Heal that doesn't trigger the base power might count against the daily limit on stimpack uses.

Thats a interesting point, does a failed application of heal still count against the stimpack application?

As said in downtime this isn't usually an issue, on long jounreys it's assumed that the crew would spend ample time treating injuries as best possible, The only thing characters absolutely must roll on is critical injuries, because failure to treat them has immediate, long lasting consequences.

During a scene that is not necessarily combat based, I would set an amount of time that the heal would take place in; between 30 seconds to 1/2 minutes for a more steady, perma heal. The character's involved (including the one being healed) cannot be moving or doing anything strainous during that period (so healing in the middle of a chase unless given momentum (e.g. speeder) is a no go; it's assumed that during these scenes unlike combat that the round times are much tighter, thus no time to concentrate unless the character slows down to do adminstor aid.) which will play a very real burden on the character to hurry up already! (Since the character being healed wouldn't be able act under the influence of the healing character, thus escalating the "heal" check in none combat, yet time limited situations where the character being healed actually can't act until the force senstive is done healing! You have to push make giving into the darkside convincing!)

In other cases, I would only permit X amount of healing checks per character if you needed a solid number. It reflects the time available before your party must start making a move. If they haven't done all the healing within the alloted time they either have to give up on that objective or press on.

In situations where there isn't the pressing issue of time? Don't bother too much, though having characters conviently healed up in an extremely short space of time might raise a few eyebrows if the party remains in the area, giving rise to the rumours of a mystic among the party....

Doesn't it say that a Force power is always successfully activated even if you don't get the points needed to trigger specific effects? If so, then even a use of Heal that doesn't trigger the base power might count against the daily limit on stimpack uses.

I'd be tempted to run it that way, but I don't think it's within the spirit of the rules. "The user may spend [FP] to heal a number of wounds..." and there are other ways this power allows you to spend Force Points. Also, "...a single target may only benefit from five uses of Heal over a twenty-four hour period." No Force Points spent means no benefit.

Again, I think it comes down to "how much time do you actually have." If you're doing a week of downtime, would treat Heal like a medical kit. You have no problem patching everyone's wounds up. It's essentially free stimpacks.

But if you're doing something overnight, I'l tell the players they have time for 1 or more actions, depending on what they want to do. More if they don't want to sleep So the Force user can roll her checks, and either use the dark side pips or not when they come up. At that point, it's an action, and now she's got two tries left if she wants to do it again. Or she can do six or seven if she wants to stay up all night and tend to her wounded teammates.

This encourages players to use their healing abilities in combat, and not just save them for when "I'll have loads of time."

(Edit...I have yet to find any reasonable use for the "Force power is always successfully activated" rule! But it's there...so I am wondering if it's to future-proof other products?)