Hello, folks! For the first time in three years of playing, one of my players rolled up a doctor. They are super pleased with the result. In any case, we had a question about the Surgeon talent. The way it is worded, the talent says "When this character makes a Medicine check to help a character heal wounds , the target heals one additional wound per rank in Surgeon."

Now, I should stress that my players and I play a ton of Magic: The Gathering, so our minds are very good toward technicalities and phrasing. The Surgeon talent specifies makes , not succeeds a Medicine check. Does that mean, potentially, that if my Doctor fails at a Medicine check to heal someone and he has one rank in Surgeon, does the target still heal 1 wound because the check was attempted? My rules-lawyering wants to say yes because of the wording, but I don't know if that makes sense.

Thanks for the help with this trivial thing!

No, you still have to succeed at any skill check. It doesn't say add successes, it says heals an additional wound, so if you bolo the roll, you healed no wounds therefore the Talent does not apply. There are specific instances throughout the rules where adding a result to a successful check, or adding a success to the roll are clearly differentiated.

I dunno. I think "additional" might just be "on top of whatever else happens," because remember a Medicine check will also heal strain at a 1-1 ratio per Advantage rolled.

You might ask the same question for the Physician talent: would you have it heal strain whether or not a Medicine check succeeded? What if it succeeded but with no Advantage; would Physician still work then? What if it didn't succeed, but there was Advantage rolled? Would Physician work then?

I would suggest that, on the face of them, the Surgeon and Physician talents are talents that just go off when you attempt a Medicine check to heal wounds. Which is really not that imbalanced, since remember, a character can only receive one Medicine check per encounter. So you've got at least something

Based on my reading of the rules I would side with 2P51's opinion on the matter.

However, I like awayputurwpn's interpretation as well, especially considering the fact that the Star Wars RPG centers talents as the means for leveraging and improving characters, above the norm.

I would expect a trained medic to do a better job of patching someone up than the average person. And in the Star Wars RPG, you can perform any skill off of the default attribute, so I'm inclined to lean toward the second opinion.

And then there's the raw fact that as the GM you can interpret the rules as you wish.

For instance, in the game that I participate we purchase talents in a method that is unique to the rules and we have a player flying around in a StarViper with a passenger. Strictly speaking, I think 2P51 is correct, but feel free to run your game how you wish.

No wounds are healed when you fail a medicine check to heal. You can potentially still heal strain with advantage symbols.

1 hour ago, GroggyGolem said:

No wounds are healed when you fail a medicine check to heal. You can potentially still heal strain with advantage symbols.

How does Physician work, then? Do you need Advantage for it to work?

I wouldn't let it. You fail, you fail, you don't heal buppkiss.

Reading the full talent description, like an MtG card you need to be healing wounds for the bonus to apply.

for reference Im using the full talent description in F&D

When this character makes a Medicine check to help a character heal wounds, the target heals 1 additional wound per rank of Surgeon.

So the qualifier is the character has to already be healing wounds , not attempting to heal wounds. For reference I studied to be an MtG judge but didnt sit the exam, 1/ there was a problem with my Nationality on my membership because the way the original club had set me up , and neither tech support or my current club could sort it out befoee

2/ commitments meant that I couldn't attend my local FnM because I started finishing work on Fridays 1hr later meaning I could only just make it in time if I went straight there.

I'm reading performing a skill check, I'm reading performing a Medicine check in wounds and healing. When you succeed on a Medicine check you heal X Wounds per Success and Y Strain per Advantage. That's one whole sentence telling you what happens after you succeed on the roll, if you fail, you fail.

Surgeon/Physician both say the same thing, when you make the check and are healing wounds you get additional benefits to the results. If you fail, you aren't healing anything, there is no result to modify. No where do the Talents say they add successes to the skill check and help it succeed, they modify a successful check, which is what is written when they say when you are helping someone and/or healing. If you fail, you aren't doing anything.

There are examples of the two in the game where Talents and items specifically spell out they add a Success or Advantage to the skill check roll. There are subtle differences as well, like Superior adds an Advantage to the results regardless of success or failure, whereas the laser sight needs the check to be successful. The Welding Rod is an example of one that adds a success, in fact in these books they are so specific they don't write success or advantage etc, they list the icon imagery for it from the die when they are referring to the actual die results. If they meant for it to add successes to the skill check the icon for success would be listed in the book.

The OP's description makes me think that they are looking at -only - the short description on the talent trees , which is wrong as they will often get a brief , economically worded version of the talent, for the full description they should look to the relevant talent description in the core chapter or in the section following specializations in the career books , if they had they would see the full wording which has no lack of clarity as myself and 2p51 answered the full description does call out you need to heal first then apply the talent, no heal, no bonus.

I'd go further than just long form write ups of Talents. A lot of the 'creative interpretation' that I read from time to time, neglects the rules overall. It's always important to consider anything within the context of all of the rules. This is a good example where the rules for skill checks point out that if you don't have some successes showing your skill check fails.

34 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

I'd go further than just long form write ups of Talents. A lot of the 'creative interpretation' that I read from time to time, neglects the rules overall. It's always important to consider anything within the context of all of the rules. This is a good example where the rules for skill checks point out that if you don't have some successes showing your skill check fails.

Yes, for example many people think the range upgrade for Force Leap allows you 2 maneuvers worth of movement for one leap, but if you read the basic power, you realise, you dont originally get the ability to change range band at all , and the upgrade lets you move from short to medium range (ie the same distance you can travel with a move maneuver , except you dont get the option to engage by leaping).

My personal favourite was the popular consensus that Precision Strikes ability to allow you to non lethally defeat a minion or rival was limited to only brawl/melee or lightsaber attacks, which when you read the talent verbatim was incorrect.

1 hour ago, 2P51 said:

I'd go further than just long form write ups of Talents. A lot of the 'creative interpretation' that I read from time to time, neglects the rules overall. It's always important to consider anything within the context of all of the rules. This is a good example where the rules for skill checks point out that if you don't have some successes showing your skill check fails.

I would disagree, in that if the players all like the interpretation, what is in the rulebook is completely irrelevant.

I could also say that zero is a result you can add one to mathmatically, but that isnt what would make the determination for me. If all the players agree that you should heal 1 per rank even on a failed roll, then just do that.

I never said people can't do what they like at their own table, but that wasn't the OPs question.

In regards to a zero result you are incorrect sir, a zero result is a failure RAW.

1 hour ago, 2P51 said:

I never said people can't do what they like at their own table, but that wasn't the OPs question.

In regards to a zero result you are incorrect sir, a zero result is a failure RAW.

I wasnt disagreeing with your reading of the rules, just that it isnt all that important. My first thought was the same as yours, but if all the players wanted to play it the way the OP suggested, and not just to screw over the rules, I would play it their way.

I just think both points should be said

5 hours ago, 2P51 said:

I'm reading performing a skill check, I'm reading performing a Medicine check in wounds and healing. When you succeed on a Medicine check you heal X Wounds per Success and Y Strain per Advantage. That's one whole sentence telling you what happens after you succeed on the roll, if you fail, you fail.

Wow! I never noticed that.

All this time I've just been allowing Advantage on a Medicine check to heal strain, regardless of Success.

Probably just gonna keep doing that