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

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.

Quick thought on the Strain issue. At first glance it seems odd that a character goes straight from not impaired to passed out. But I think the effects of low strain assert themselves more subtly than with straight up penalties. As a character runs out of Strain, the player becomes less willing to spend strain to activate Abilities or take extra maneuvers. When it gets really low a character may not be able to use there abilities to their full effect, or stops being able to use them at all.

Thats a good point ema nymton, its a subtle effect but its there.

I always thought that application of stim to the ankle being a self initiated medical check, while the drug administered is probably some consumable derivative of Yarrock,

That being said, it's always worth talking to players about things like this before implimentation, and work out a system of healing. Such as people don't like heal checks because they feel it would take too long and be too distracting (more rolls for less plot enrichment, hence the stim was the handwave option incase people got banged up on a basic encounter)

I like the option that inflicts strain and some posthumous wound damage after it wears off. To provide the initial boost strongly needed, but ultimately a medical check off anyone is the best option.

I have to be honest, I like Whafrogs idea of Stimpaks increasing your threshold. Yes you would have to handle some paper work but that is hardly a great issue. If you want to be really harsh you make the stimpak last till the end of the encounter, otherwise it would last for however many hours the GM wants. After all, he is the one who largely controls the passage of time.

It should be pointed out that this is also a matter of gaming preference. Although quick heals could be seen as immersion breaking for some groups, I have found that games with 'realistic' healing times it can get very boring and slows down the plot as the characters who have typically taken a significant amount of damage (these systems also seem to like people to suffer when damaged). I remember one game of Shadowrun where a particularly idiotic magic user kept getting himself shot so badly and so frequently that we either got someone else in to fill in his spot or lost 3-6 months as we waited for him to heal up.

As interesting as all of these ideas are, one fundamental problem I see is that it completely eliminates the possibility of a party getting into more than one scrape a day or a week... Please keep in mind that a starting character with 1 Brawn only has a 2 soak (usually). Being shot -once- by a blaster rifle is going to cause them a minimum of 8 wounds. With 2 stimpacks, as written, they can recover and continue to fight (while spending 50cr). However, with many of these changes, it will take several days of rest and multiple medicine checks to recover. This leads to an avalanche of downtime and makes combat much more lethal for characters without high soak -- pushing more and more players to build high-soak characters to counteract this situation.

By all means, it's your game and your table, but please keep in mind that having characters spend days in recovery (and horde all their credits for a bacta tank as their first purchase) isn't particularly cinematic.

As interesting as all of these ideas are, one fundamental problem I see is that it completely eliminates the possibility of a party getting into more than one scrape a day or a week... Please keep in mind that a starting character with 1 Brawn only has a 2 soak (usually). Being shot -once- by a blaster rifle is going to cause them a minimum of 8 wounds. With 2 stimpacks, as written, they can recover and continue to fight (while spending 50cr). However, with many of these changes, it will take several days of rest and multiple medicine checks to recover. This leads to an avalanche of downtime and makes combat much more lethal for characters without high soak -- pushing more and more players to build high-soak characters to counteract this situation.

By all means, it's your game and your table, but please keep in mind that having characters spend days in recovery (and horde all their credits for a bacta tank as their first purchase) isn't particularly cinematic.

I agree. Just have more combats occur in 24 hours and stimpack use will get stressed out naturally RAW.

I agree. Just have more combats occur in 24 hours and stimpack use will get stressed out naturally RAW.

Personally I don't like running that many combats and would rather not have to do it just to work around the mechanics. Combat then becomes a major portion of the game, leaving less time for other scenes.

I agree. Just have more combats occur in 24 hours and stimpack use will get stressed out naturally RAW.

Personally I don't like running that many combats and would rather not have to do it just to work around the mechanics. Combat then becomes a major portion of the game, leaving less time for other scenes.

I agree, which leads right back to my suggestion of using the alternate rule in the GM section for a single roll to determine an entire combat as a way of including more combat without burning a bunch of table time. Great way to add a level of stress over wounds and strain to a party without having to run multiple combat encounters.

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.

Increase the duration? Note that only part of the healing affect is lost after an hour, not all of it.

Increased "jitters":

Stimpaks may cause “jitters” if a number are taken equal to Brawn within a 24 hour period. When administering Stimpaks whose current count is equal to Brawn or more, the recipient must instantly make a Resilience check with a dd difficulty plus d per Stimpak count above Brawn within the last 24 hours. Failure results in the person being Disoriented (add b to all checks) for 24 hours. Example: Biggums has a Brawn of 3. He has no problem being administered 2 Stimpaks. But, when the 3 ^rd is taken he must roll an Average ( dd ) Resilience check or suffer the Disoriented condition for 24 hours. Each extra Stimpak taken will result in another Resilience check of increasing difficulty.

As interesting as all of these ideas are, one fundamental problem I see is that it completely eliminates the possibility of a party getting into more than one scrape a day or a week... Please keep in mind that a starting character with 1 Brawn only has a 2 soak (usually). Being shot -once- by a blaster rifle is going to cause them a minimum of 8 wounds. With 2 stimpacks, as written, they can recover and continue to fight (while spending 50cr). However, with many of these changes, it will take several days of rest and multiple medicine checks to recover. This leads to an avalanche of downtime and makes combat much more lethal for characters without high soak -- pushing more and more players to build high-soak characters to counteract this situation.

While I agree that Stimpacks allow the plot to continue without the tedious healing time issue, I disagree with the concept that the alteration Whafrog made would eliminate the possibility of more than one scrape per day/week. My group hardly ever use them but since one of the characters has medical ability (and in fact several medical talents)it rarely makes a difference.

Having Stimpacks temporarily increase the wound threshold just means that the crew can carry on a little longer before they need a medic. So long as you have a medic (droid or meatbag) in the group, you should be able to keep going.

That said, we need to remember that wounds in games these days rarely equate directly to trauma. Often those are being handled through critical hits and the like. Stimpacks handle the heavy bruising, minor burns and general feelings of having been through the mill.

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.

If you choose to ignore the guidance provided in the description of structured play and how a GM is within their rights to require certain skills checks take more than a single Action, or that they can't even be performed during an encounter. The section also states some skills can be required to take much longer to fully complete.

Seems completely appropriate to me if a GM wanted to say the initial stabilization of a critical injury can be done during structured play and within a round, but that complete treatment requires X # of hours per Difficulty of follow on treatment as well. Makes the option of dunking some PCs into a Bacta tank more necessary as a medic will be quickly tapped out in what they can accomplish.

Just my two credits.

If I were to add a change, I'd use setback dice. For each stim after the first, the character gets a setback die until he "detoxes" . So if he takes two stims in a 24 hour period, he gets one, three stims equals two dice, etc...

Mainly because setback dice appear under utilizied. Second, I feel this approach is pretty straightforward and it isn't that much more bookkeeping. And third, jitters = setback dice I feel is in keeping with the system as well. Maybe allow resilience rolls to prevent the jitters...on the pro side it gives more utility to the skill...on the con side it makes wookie melee marauders a wee bit more powerful which may or may not be what you are looking for. Also it gives another use for "remove setback dice talents."

Granted I feel part of the issue is dependent on the campaign, less narrative and more combat will result in more injuries...Especially if the players are team murderhobo. While pew pew is part of Star Wars....sometimes a social check has more lasting impact than an autofire heavy blaster...or at least it would in my preferred style of campaign. Yes pew pew blew up the Death Star...but it was the words from Luke that prompted Dad to give Palpatine the shaft.

Mainly because setback dice appear under utilizied. Second, I feel this approach is pretty straightforward and it isn't that much more bookkeeping. And third, jitters = setback dice I feel is in keeping with the system as well. Maybe allow resilience rolls to prevent the jitters...on the pro side it gives more utility to the skill...on the con side it makes wookie melee marauders a wee bit more powerful which may or may not be what you are looking for. Also it gives another use for "remove setback dice talents."

If you think that setback are under utilized, then that is probably an issue in your group. Setback should be present in almost any roll as they account for all kinds of things. Noise, lighting, tools, passed around threat, etc... I think my players typically have between 3 and 6 setback on any given roll before Talents reduce the load. Which is what the Talents are for, heheh.

A simple fix could be taking one strain for every stimpack. So when you're taking that 5th stimpack you are also taking 5 strain.

Stimpack

A cocktail of medical stimulants, bacta, and narcotics, a stimpack is a glactic "quick fix" solution for keeping an injured person moving until they can receive proper medical attention. It's not the last word in healing, but it is usually the first. While these items are simple enough to be applied by any layman, only a medical professionals will have the knowledge and skill needed to make the best use of one.

Effects: Each stimpack increases a user's wound threshold over the normal, allowing them to delay succumbing to their wounds. Each pack increases the wound threshold by X, and the effects last until the user sleeps, where the chemicals break down due to decreased metabolic activity.

Each stimpack also heals 1 wound plus an additional wound for each rank in Medicine the applier of the stimpack possesses.

Any stimpack used after the fifth between a character waking up and sleeping for the night requires an upgraded average Resilience check. Despair leads to addiction, and of course threat should be applied to setback dice and strain.

Edit: So I'm on a phone. Please excuse the few errors.

As for the X variable, I think 3 or 5, but I like prime numbers.

I subscribe to the "Wounds are just an abstract concept for general battle wear-and-tear." kool-aid. Superficial wounds, battle fatigue, things like that. So in that sense, Stimpacks work just fine for me as is. If stims were used to heal critical injuries - your real nasty hits - then I would think twice on how they behaved.

Were I running a game and found stims to be a problem, I think I'd find a way to make the medic a part of the process. Sure, anyone can jab a space epi-pen in their leg and let the stimulants and healing factors keep them on their feet. It takes a pro to keep that graze or burn from getting infected in the long term though. Maybe something as needing a Medicine check per stim to 'reset' the count for the next day. Doc only passes 3 checks? You start the next day as if you already used 2 stims. I'm sure some additional caveats would need to be put in place, how many times / how often the Doc can attempt the checks, etc.

Additionally, if you're looking to make a bacta tank more attractive... maybe it could be allowed, in complement to its normal effects, to allow a doctor to make daily checks for healing criticals, instead of weekly ones.

Just a few spit-ball ideas there. I'm multi-tasking at work so my apologies if it sounds a little rough.

God I hate to do this but....

With the way the Stimpak is being described here, it would seem that it should effect the Strain Threshold as well.

Character is running from the big ugly through the swamps - oppressive heat, foul air, insect bites etc. GM rules Strain loss then the character falls off a short cliff. He takes Wounds and Strain. In this case the wounds he can handle but the accumulated effects on his body and spirit are about to shut him down. (Strain Threshold very close)

It would seem fairly appropriate for him to pop a Stimpak to get that boost he needs to keep going, even though its not a wound he is really trying to affect.

Is it too much to have a Stimpak increase both your Wound and Strain Threshold temporarily?

Just another note that seems pretty obvious but nobody has mentioned it.

If the approach is to increase the Threshold rather than heal wounds, then it would seem prudent to 'amp up' before going into battle. Every soldier with any sense would prepare this way and any military would probably provide the "Stims" for their troops. Increasing your fighter's Thresholds by 3 or 4 even could make a big difference.

Is this something that fits the Star Wars Universe? Stormtroopers getting their buzz on before an assault?

If there was a serious downside (jitters, addiction, potential overdose?) then it might make sense to withhold such treatment until it was really necessary and only the undisciplined would utilize it proactively. The Empire want deadly, efficient troops not Stim-happy wild men. That might make more sense in a Star Warsy way. (Bounty Hunter's lackies shoot up before they attack but your trained military dont)

Is this something that fits the Star Wars Universe? Stormtroopers getting their buzz on before an assault?

If there was a serious downside (jitters, addiction, potential overdose?) then it might make sense to withhold such treatment until it was really necessary and only the undisciplined would utilize it proactively. The Empire want deadly, efficient troops not Stim-happy wild men. That might make more sense in a Star Warsy way. (Bounty Hunter's lackies shoot up before they attack but your trained military dont)

If Stormtroopers were taking combat drugs, you would think it would have been mentioned before. I would go with the side affects trumping the benefits so they aren't commonly used. Perhaps an adventure where an experimental Stormtrooper Company all doped up on combat drugs encounters the PCs. That could be fun. But I wouldn't make it Empire wide. Bounty Hunters as you suggested also makes sense.

If you really want amped up Stormtroopers, there IS a precedent. If Stormtroopers = Nazi Stormtroopers, the historical version actually did use performance enhancing drugs. We owe the scourge of methamphetamines to the Nazi's since they first invented it for battlefield use.

Oh I don't want amped troopers, not at all. I find the notion decidedly anti Star Wars but if a Stimpak alternate rule enhance Thresholds without a downside I don't think you could avoid it.

Not to mention you couldn't avoid your Players spending credits on the incredibly inexpensive way to enhance your Threshold stat and walk around with backpacks full of them.

This thread has come a long way and theres lots of good stuff here. My original intention was to find an alternative to the provision Stimpaks present in the game.

What Im seeing however is that there are several issues here.

Simpaks don't seem to fit in well with the other medical treatments per core rules.( They are too powerful, too cheap and have no real downside)

There is no provision for assisting Strain in the field. (surely an easier task mechanically than actually healing injuries.)

There is no provision for temporarily providing relief for critical injuries. (seems at least as important as removing a couple wounds)

Given the technology of StarWars these seem like probable elements in field medicine.

Ill admit that its a bit more than just a Stimpak rework but Im not sure that will work on its own.

Heres a rough suggestion. By looking at the available medical options and making the assumption that trained personnel are probably using some version of the same devices (if not the very same device) a lay person would be using, these should provide similar but lesser effects and involve some sort of negative effect when not administered by a professional.

STIMPAK - hyperspray used to flood the subjects system with adrenaline, vitamins and painkillers to allow them to function despite discomfort, exhaustion etc.

Removes 2 strain per administration, repeatable up to 3 times. Effect lasts the rest of the encounter or about an hour. Causes "Jitters" while under the influence (1 Setback to all actions), stacks with each repeated dose. After first dose a Resilience check (difficulty Easy, Average for third dose) must be taken with failure causing 1 wound from cardiovascular and nervous damage due to Hyperadreno Reaction. (Threat = resistance, -1 recovered strain / Despair = heightened reaction, incapacitated till end of encounter)

BACTA PATCH - Penetrates tissue with healing agent, anesthetics and antibiotics. Restores 2 wounds for the rest of the 24 hour day. (1 wound returns the next day) Useable once per wound source/occurrence. Multiple applications during a single encounter (or about an hour) causes 1 Strain for each. Application may remove effect of Critical Injury till end of encounter (up to Average severity) with a Hard Resilience check. (Threat = +1 Strain/ Despair = +1 Wound)

As medical personnel can heal wounds, restore strain and remove critical injuries in the field, its possible with these devices but not nearly as effective and in addition risk complicating their condition due to unsupervised or rushed treatment and associated exacerbation of the condition.

Cost and Rarity? Im not sure. Maybe a bit more than the core Stimpak, perhaps 50 for either and rarity 2?

Just another note that seems pretty obvious but nobody has mentioned it.

If the approach is to increase the Threshold rather than heal wounds, then it would seem prudent to 'amp up' before going into battle. Every soldier with any sense would prepare this way and any military would probably provide the "Stims" for their troops. Increasing your fighter's Thresholds by 3 or 4 even could make a big difference.

There is already a “Stim Application” talent in the Doctor tree from EotE and the Medic tree from AoR, and that can have some quite significant effects. In a previous game, we used it all the time.

What that talent didn’t have and should have, is the associated drawbacks like being jittery, addiction, etc….

Shame, I guess the interest in this thread died out. I