Not interested in completely rewriting the rules on health, wounds and healing... Ive read several lengthy threads along this line and that's not my intention at all.

I have a couple minor concerns that Id like to address with a house rule and Im looking for ideas.

1. Hindrance for being wounded, strained before reaching threshold

Id like to implement some sort of limitation or negative effect for a character that is hurt, exhausted or what have you before they succumb. Perhaps a variation of the Disoriented condition that renders a setback dice to all actions and add in the inability to perform 2 maneuvers in a round. Call it "Impaired" or something. It takes effect if the character is more than 50% to his threshold, wound or strain.

2. Stimpaks

The "healing potion" feel of these things bothers me a little, not to mention it seems odd that being submerged in a bacta tank under full medical supervision heals only one wound every two hours (one every six if incapacitated) yet you can catch a shot in the field and heal 5 instantly, up to 15 if you stack them at the max. They cost 25cr while the bacta and its tank will run you 4000+

Granted, the tank will heal critical injuries but the effect on 'wounds' seems really off in comparison.

In a recent read of "Heir to the Empire" Mara Jade used stimpaks to keep on her feet while escorting a captive Luke from a crash site through the jungle. The author's approach to the stimpak fit my own impression pretty well.

Taking the shot allowed her to ignore an injured ankle and travel on it. It also kept her from needing sleep and on her toes for several days. It also gave her the jitters from all the adrenaline and affected her abilities somewhat (almost dropping a weapon exchange from one hand to another and missing a shot)

My thought is the stimpak should "temporarily" provide relief from injury, and perhaps promote the healing of mild injuries but shouldn't automatically heal serious wounds outright. In addition there should be a downside to using them aside from the core rule of simply diminishing returns. Luke warns Mara in the book that if she keeps it up she will collapse.

Im thinking 1 wound healed for a stimpak and the temporary relief from 1 more. This lasts 24 hours, so the next day the player must 'take a wound' for each stimpak he used the day before. (That shouldn't require too much record keeping) In addition, while under the influence you suffer 1 strain for each stimpak taken and you incur the "Impaired" condition

You can stack them up to 5, as in the core rules - so you could recover from 10 wounds in the field, suffer 5 strain and have the impaired condition for a day. On the next day you would recover from 'impaired', recover your strain and suffer 5 wounds as the effects of those you suffered from the day before return. (Stimpak hangover)

Thoughts?

For you first change, I think it's a bit punitive. The Wound threshold in this game is pretty low already, it doesn't take much to get into "half" territory.

For stimpacks, maybe a stimpack should temporarily increase your thresholds instead of healing wounds. When they finally wear off you'll be out for a while...

I can see problems with the first subject. You're basically inflicting a critical injury without any of the parameters that would normally inflict a critical injury. By doing it with strain, you're basically turning a player resource (akin to magic or ability points) into just another HP gauge; I can see players running extra cautious with it, not willing to take risks or perform those cool things they spent all their XP on. An easier solution for the entire thing would be to just aim to trigger more critical injuries.

With stimpacks, I'd say it's just a narrative/descriptive thing. Descriptively, they do what the thing Mara Jade used did. Mechanically, that's translated into healing wounds.

Lately I have also realized that bacta tanks are very unefficent form of healing. They cost an auwful amount of credits and do nothing a bunch of stimpacks cannot solve faster.

They can ofcourse help healing critic injuries, but again, any average doctor with a medpack that reduces the critic difficulty by one will make it faster and cheaper.

I've always tried to up the need for trained medical care and impact the stimpack issue.

My latest greatest effort is to use the alternative rules in the GM section that speak about using a single roll by each PC to resolve a combat where victory is a foregone conclusion in an effort to speed things along. I am doing the same, but using it as a tool to include more combats in a single play session, as well as within a 24 hour period, to inflict more damage on PCs without taking up the requisite table time.

It provides a level of consideration in regards to stimpack usage, the inclusion of a good medic, and the use of a Bacta tank that I agree is lacking as it stands now.

With stimpacks, I'd say it's just a narrative/descriptive thing. Descriptively, they do what the thing Mara Jade used did. Mechanically, that's translated into healing wounds.

The problem is, there's no after-effect. The Wounds are just gone. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of a temporary increase. It gives more headroom to keep the PC moving, but you pay for it later, which is a common narrative element that normal stimpack use doesn't account for.

I came into this system expecting medpacs to work like stimpacks do, and stimpacks to work like the Stim Application talent does, so, what have you.

Maybe a possibility is to give a side effect for overuse of stimpacks. Maybe make the wait for the chemicals to work out of the system longer, and impose strain damage or a weakened threshold for using 5+.

I kind of like the idea of a temporary threshold increase. It does seem to make more sense than the free healing effect. On the other hand, it does require a little extra tracking. It could also greatly increase the recovery time required for players. I know in my campaign the party would end up being down for weeks at a time if we used threshold increases.

The bacta tank does seem underpowered for wound recovery and I think that's an easy fix. You could easily change that to one wound per hour or one wound per two hours if incapacitated. It still won't have the instant effect of stimpacks but it's significantly faster and I think the real benefit of a bacta tank has always been in healing critical injuries.

I think we should take a look at the rules for other drugs in the system, and see if we can’t combine those into the way that a stimpack works.

So, yeah — you can use a stimpack. The positive impact is not necessarily any different than what the game does today. But the way it’s made, the components are like a concentrated version of a dose of booster blue, plus a dose of deathsticks, plus a dose of bacta. So, you get that boost now, but you’re going to pay for it later.

Or whatever makes the most sense, but if players understand what the narrative components are for a stimpack, then maybe they’ll think about it a bit more.

More research is required.

I think the real benefit of a bacta tank has always been in healing critical injuries.

I have to disagree. Notice that what a bacta tank does is to allow a patient to roll one Resilience check once per 24 hours to recover from a single critical injury. That means two things. One, the patient can only recover from one critical injury per 24 hours, and two, the patient still needs to succeed a Resilience check.

This is way worse, or, if you don't like the word "worse", it is less efficient and less effective than having an average medic equipped with a CAPC ECM-598 Medical Backpack, who in a few rounds can heal all the critical injuries suffered by a patient.

I think the real benefit of a bacta tank has always been in healing critical injuries.

I have to disagree. Notice that what a bacta tank does is to allow a patient to roll one Resilience check once per 24 hours to recover from a single critical injury. That means two things. One, the patient can only recover from one critical injury per 24 hours, and two, the patient still needs to succeed a Resilience check.

This is way worse, or, if you don't like the word "worse", it is less efficient and less effective than having an average medic equipped with a CAPC ECM-598 Medical Backpack, who in a few rounds can heal all the critical injuries suffered by a patient.

You can only attempt to heal one critical injury per week without a bacta tank. That's significantly less efficient than one per day if you've accumulated more than one injury.

One element Im trying hard not to introduce is a bunch of annoying book keeping if a Stimpak's effect is temporary. (ie. Well I took one stimpak at about 1400 hours yesterday so that one will wear off in another couple of hours and Ill take one of the healed wounds back then, but then in another hour after that Ill take one from the stimpak I took at 1530 hours after that fall from the ramp yesterday.. and then..)

That sort of thing just makes me cringe. My original impulse was to have stimpaks wear off rather quickly as their downside for such a remarkable and immediate effect. You recover wounds for 2 hours maybe then bang, its gone. But as mentioned above, what a pain to track and it seriously limits their usefulness. However I'm not sure I see a way to introduce a temporary effect without it, except to tie it to an easily measurable period. (Like a standard Imperial day - 24 hours or what have you) Its a little fuzzy that way as a stimpak you took late at night wouldn't last as long as one you took early in the morning but it would alleviate the need for careful tracking. You only need to know how many took in a given 'day'. (hashmarks on your character sheet would do it)

I still support the hard 5/day limit as a nice way of avoiding overuse but there is a kind of dramatic flare to the idea of allowing someone to take so many stimpaks during a fight that they will absolutely collapse, possibly die, when they wear off later.

It does seem when comparing the various medical healing effects that the Stimpak is just sort of out of sync with the others. Maybe the game design guys had a rationalization but Im not seeing it.

One element Im trying hard not to introduce is a bunch of annoying book keeping if a Stimpak's effect is temporary. (ie. Well I took one stimpak at about 1400 hours yesterday so that one will wear off in another couple of hours and Ill take one of the healed wounds back then, but then in another hour after that Ill take one from the stimpak I took at 1530 hours after that fall from the ramp yesterday.. and then..)

That sort of thing just makes me cringe. My original impulse was to have stimpaks wear off rather quickly as their downside for such a remarkable and immediate effect. You recover wounds for 2 hours maybe then bang, its gone. But as mentioned above, what a pain to track. However I'm not sure I see a way to introduce a temporary effect without it, except to tie it to an easily measurable period. (Like a standard Imperial day - 24 hours or what have you) Its a little fuzzy that way as a stimpak you took late at night wouldn't last as long as one you took early in the morning but it would alleviate the need for careful tracking. You only need to know how many took in a given 'day'. (hashmarks on your character sheet would do it)

I still support the hard 5/day limit as a nice way of avoiding overuse but there is a kind of dramatic flare to the idea of allowing someone to take so many stimpaks during a fight that they will absolutely collapse, possibly die, when they wear off later.

If you want to have temporary effects without tracking it down to the hour, you might just say that it lasts until the characters go to sleep (kind of like 4e D&D that had effects that lasted until the characters too a short rest or an extended rest), assuming that they don't try to abuse this by refusing to sleep for 3 days straight (but of course that could bring its own penalties).

Sorry, just gotta throw this in... its called a STIM pak, not a MED pak or HEALING pak. The very name suggests stimulants, drugs to help the character function, perhaps even enhance their physical ability but nothing about healing.

Im liking the idea more and more that a STIM pak doesn't heal at all but rather lets you ignore the injuries you have for a time, at a price. Im wondering if there is even a place for a Stimpak to help you overcome a critical? Im imagining a guy shooting himself up so he can use his broken leg, then having to deal with the potentially ruined limb when he comes down off the drug.

yes Bonenaga, that's kind of what Im aiming at with the 'wears off in a day' suggestion. Sleep would work I suppose but then you get into characters wanting to take afternoon naps between fights etc. or forego sleep as you suggest. It can get silly. Its a thought though, perhaps a nice long 8 hours of sleep.. something a grunt in the field may not get for several days.. which would have its own effect on Stimpak use.

One of my house rules after discussion in a previous thread on the same topic:

REMOVAL OF “HEALING POTION” STIMPAKS

I would have the amount of wounds healed to be 1 and double the strain due to the narcotics used for the painkillers. They won't be able to heal any critical injuries. Since there are powerful narcotics involved I would suggest tossing in an addiction obligation if a character abuses stimpacks too much say using two or more stimpacks at a time repeatedly then have the character make a discipline skill check at 4 difficulty to avoid becoming an addict. A stimpack is an emergency medical option to keep someone going and isn't a permanent solution to injury.

The bacta tank does seem underpowered for wound recovery and I think that's an easy fix. You could easily change that to one wound per hour or one wound per two hours if incapacitated. It still won't have the instant effect of stimpacks but it's significantly faster and I think the real benefit of a bacta tank has always been in healing critical injuries.

You could also have bacta patches (that cost, say, 100cr each) that accelerate healing overnight: double, or triple, or 1+ a simple Resilience roll...

With stimpacks, I'd say it's just a narrative/descriptive thing. Descriptively, they do what the thing Mara Jade used did. Mechanically, that's translated into healing wounds.

The problem is, there's no after-effect.

Isn't that specifically why this game has crits?

You can only attempt to heal one critical injury per week without a bacta tank. That's significantly less efficient than one per day if you've accumulated more than one injury.

That is not what the rules say. The rules say you can only make one attempt per wound per week. So if a patient have five critical wounds, the medic can attempt five medicine checks, one per round, and you can heal them all if the medic don't fail his checks. If he fails some checks, he cannot try it again until a week has passed.

Pg. 219 of EotE Core

"A character may also attempt to help someone recover from a Critical Injury by making a Medicine check with a difficulty equal to the severity rating of the Critical Injury (see Table 6-11 on page 220). A character may attempt one Medicine check per week per Critical Injury "

Which I see it heals you faster from your critics than a bacta tank does

Yes Sturn, I have your suggestion on file (along with a lot of your other excellent stuff!) but an hour's duration on effect seemed a bit harsh. The "Jitters" really don't have much direct effect on play either, other than making the individual careful not to gain more strain from other sources. Good stuff though and certainly a good alternative rule. (perhaps with a longer duration and the addition of a hindrance of some kind?) I'm going to dwell on it a bit more, see what others come up with here before making up my mind.

Yes Sturn, I have your suggestion on file (along with a lot of your other excellent stuff!) but an hour's duration on effect seemed a bit harsh. The "Jitters" really don't have much direct effect on play either, other than making the individual careful not to gain more strain from other sources. Good stuff though and certainly a good alternative rule. (perhaps with a longer duration and the addition of a hindrance of some kind?) I'm going to dwell on it a bit more, see what others come up with here before making up my mind.

My comment was in regards to Sturn's to alter the rules he came up with.

Lately I have also realized that bacta tanks are very unefficent form of healing. They cost an auwful amount of credits and do nothing a bunch of stimpacks cannot solve faster.

They can ofcourse help healing critic injuries, but again, any average doctor with a medpack that reduces the critic difficulty by one will make it faster and cheaper.

That's because Bacta tanks aren't for strain or wounds, but for critical injuries.

You can only attempt to heal one critical injury per week without a bacta tank. That's significantly less efficient than one per day if you've accumulated more than one injury.

That is not what the rules say. The rules say you can only make one attempt per wound per week. So if a patient have five critical wounds, the medic can attempt five medicine checks, one per round, and you can heal them all if the medic don't fail his checks. If he fails some checks, he cannot try it again until a week has passed.

Pg. 219 of EotE Core

"A character may also attempt to help someone recover from a Critical Injury by making a Medicine check with a difficulty equal to the severity rating of the Critical Injury (see Table 6-11 on page 220). A character may attempt one Medicine check per week per Critical Injury "

Which I see it heals you faster from your critics than a bacta tank does

Hmmm, I didn't catch that. It's worded differently than it is on other pages. Regardless, I don't know how your medical checks go but rarely does our medic succeed at every check. Maybe my players just rack up more injuries than most, but they really want (and need) a bacta tank.