Hi

I'm new in this rpg and me and my group have a doubt about how use the medicine hability.

Tha core rulebook say this:

The doubt is about how many times a character can use this hability in a row, to different PJs. The example is this:

- Pash and Oskara are both wounded. As the rule say, each character may only receive on medicine check

- 41Vex use his medicine skill in the first chacarter, Pash

The doubt is ¿Can the droid make another medicine check with Oskara? ¿Or we need to wait to another encounter?

In my opinion the droid could use this skill again with the second character, it would be at least strange that a doctor can cure only one patient...but I know that these games try to 'symbolize' the situations, like for example perception checks, and try to make them like a single group check in order to avoid the players throwing again and again dices until winning the roll...)

And help appreciated

Thanks!

One check per wounded PC, per encounter for Wounds. One check per PC, per week, for each crit. That's it.

Vex, being the doctor can make multiple checks, but each injured character can only receive ONE medicine check as per 2P51's list.

That's how I always run it, otherwise what's the point of having one doctor, or it's going on the triage system.

Thank you for your answer

And ¿what is exactly and encounter? ¿It's a combar situation? Because the rule 'one check per encounter' seems to mean that you can only use the medicine skill during one encounter(combat), but not after the encounter...

Yeah, it's one check for the person being treated.

We just had a pretty vicious fight which took out at least half of our group. The doctor got to race from patient to patient healing each person in turn. We also used stim paks (1 each) in addition to the Dr but that still left most of the group badly (and critically) wounded.

An 'encounter' is a single 'fight.'

In our case we actually had two separate opposition forces we were contending with. The victims/patients each received medical attention after our fight with the first group.

We then jumped into another fight!

However the wounded did NOT participate in the second wave (even though the doctor did).

In our example the wounded were eligible for only 1 medicine check because they were only involved in 1 fight. However, if one of the wounded and raced into the second combat, then the doctor could have attempted a second medical check on that individual only.

Also, suppose we had a party member who was involved with BOTH the first and second waves. If they did not receive medical help between waves but were wounded in BOTH combats, they would still only be eligible for 1 medical check.

Is that clear now?

1 hour ago, elshman said:

Thank you for your answer

And ¿what is exactly and encounter? ¿It's a combar situation? Because the rule 'one check per encounter' seems to mean that you can only use the medicine skill during one encounter(combat), but not after the encounter...

Encounter means structured play, so typically combat not always. Rule of thumb it involves initiative, so a Medical check per initiative roll is a way to think about it.

At least one talent says that, outside of structured time, a once-per encounter ability can be used once per 12 hours. I tend to use this as a general guideline for such abilities.

10 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

At least one talent says that, outside of structured time, a once-per encounter ability can be used once per 12 hours. I tend to use this as a general guideline for such abilities.

Do you know where it says that? It seems like a good rule of thumb, but I'd love to have confirmation.

Ok, thank you for your answers.

But ¿what if a PJ is wounded outside an encounter? For example, Pash interact with a computer and the computer explode, cousing him 5 damage point. It's not an encounter because it's not a fight, no turns etc. The rule imply that the doctor could not use the medicine skill, no?

Please correct me if I'm wrong, the rule seems at least unrealistic for me...

Thank you

11 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

At least one talent says that, outside of structured time, a once-per encounter ability can be used once per 12 hours. I tend to use this as a general guideline for such abilities.

Mmm yeah, this would be the rule that allows you to use the medicine skill outside an encounter...but I can't find any text like this neither the medicine skill nor the related talents like field medic etc...

In the case of the exploding computer I'd say that the doctor can treat the person. If this is part of a larger action sequence (infiltration mission, etc) then it counts as the use for that encounter. If it's standalone then it's essentially an encounter unto itself.

Rather than worry too much about whether structured time is involved (it's a good indicator, but not the only one) or whether combat takes place, consider it from the perspective of a story scene/sequence. Has a complete one occurred? Then it was an encounter.

Yeah, I think that way. The problem is that the master is one of the "by the book" type...so if the core rules don't specify it, you can't do it...For me I think it's a hole in the rules, because it is talking about the medicine in encounters, not in general, and then missing points like this happen...

Thank you

"By the book" doesn't work well with this system. It's deliberately open ended (or vague, take your pick) on points like that since so much of what goes on in the game is situational, and a GM that tries to impose a 'exactly as written' mentality will result in a dysfunctional game.

Think of Encounters like scenes in a movie, each new scene the PC can be healed again.

So in your exploding computer example Vex could heal Pash straight away. But if the scene doesn't change again for a little while then they can't receive more healing. As an example perhaps the explosion drew the attention of some guards and a combat breaks out, after the combat Vex still could not heal Pash because they were still in the scene where the computer exploded and Healing had already happened.

Ugh, the confusion!

I'm going to interject some real world practical information into this discussion, because these RPG's are trying (some better than others) to model reality (a bit).

In the case of treating patients, the medic or physician needs to treat the injury within an hour (aka the "Golden" hour) to be most effective. In reality, if a character sustains a new injury , then a medicine check is in order, regardless of whether they were shot by a blaster in combat, or had a computer spontaneously combust on them, or if they accidentally dropped a spanner on their big toe while performing routine preventative maintenance (PMCS) on the hyperdrive.

(And blast you if, as a GM, you are making your players roll mechanics checks for PMCS)!

IIRC (and please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) but once a medical skill check is performed, you may not perform another check for that character until they get injured again. However treating critical hits is done once a week thereafter! After the medicine check a character will one wound per day.

So at that point, go find a bacta tank, 'cause that will heal 1 wound per hour.

4 hours ago, elshman said:

Yeah, I think that way. The problem is that the master is one of the "by the book" type...so if the core rules don't specify it, you can't do it...For me I think it's a hole in the rules, because it is talking about the medicine in encounters, not in general, and then missing points like this happen...

Thank you

Are you coming from D&D or MMOs? This is a much more narrative system- when it says 'encounter', it means a scene in the film you're all playing. So there are no hard and fast rules for this, because it depends upon the story you're telling. The spacing of 'encounter' will vary depending on if you're trying to tell a traditional Episode IV style story where the PCs rush from place to place, or a more gritty Rogue One tale, for example. This does make it a little harder for first-time GMs but once they adjust (and they will, fairly quickly) it results in a much better playstyle.

Richardbuxton is correct. An encounter is not just a combat encounter. An encounter is a scene, typically where a challenge (of any sort) is faced.

It's a matter of common sense. What is trying to be avoided is simply performing Medicine check after Medicine check and healing PCs completely every time they stub their toe, or re-rolling failures until you get a success, or PCs initiating pointless contacts or situations with NPCs to claim it's another encounter and have another Medicine check. Good time for the GM to be the GM.

Like most rpg systems I limit healing to once per injury, but don't allow healing to overflow.

I find the by the book approach prevents common sense doctoring. By only allowing a single check per encounter it encourages healing to be put off (I won't heal you straight away in case you get a bigger injury before the end of the encounter) and punishes healers during extended encounters.

I personally feel that I would rule just simply , once per encounter, its reasonable to say that after a social check a medic, could say. lets have another look at that wound to see if its healing nicely and then apply some more "bacta-balm" (TM) on the wound to help it some more. I know some encounters can last longer but ultimately it averages out, and still gives a reasoable rate of recovery above and beyond the 1 wound per day.

The 12h = 1 encounter comes from Healing Trance. I apply it as a general guideline for non-structured time even if that wasn't the author's intents.

Thank you for your answers, now I only have to convince my hard-headed master that applying rules strictly by the letter is not a good approach in this game :-)

Wish me good luck..

It is strictly by the letter and to quote the F&D rulebook page 226

Each character may only receive one medicine check each encounter.

Personally, I consider it to be another encounter when the game changes to a different scene, such as if time was spent to travel to somewhere, basically if a certain amount of time beyond a couple minutes passes between the first scene and the next. In that way, I consider narrative situations to also be encounters.

11 hours ago, syrath said:

It is strictly by the letter and to quote the F&D rulebook page 226

Each character may only receive one medicine check each encounter.

I know, that's clear, what I mean is about the definition of an 'encounter'. If you are strict by the book (page 198) an encounter is: "Structured gameplays events (also called encounters) such as a combat". If the definition strictly applies, then " Each character may only receive one medicine check each encounter " means you can't use the skill outside an encounter. That's what we were discussing last days..

9 hours ago, GroggyGolem said:

Personally, I consider it to be another encounter when the game changes to a different scene, such as if time was spent to travel to somewhere, basically if a certain amount of time beyond a couple minutes passes between the first scene and the next. In that way, I consider narrative situations to also be encounters.

I agree...it would do no harm if the core rules were a bit more specific about the encounter thing..

Thank you all again for the help, people