The healing rules in the Core Rulebook seem to the the same as the ones from Dark Heresy, in that if you are Lightly Wounded, you recover 1 (or your toughness bonus for complete rest) per day, 1 (or your toughness bonus for complete rest) per week for Heavily Damaged, etc.

But this does not take into account the accelerated healing that their gene-seed bestows on them. Shouldnt they be healing at a much, much faster rate? I've seen accounts of Space Marines taking massive damage in combat, and already starting to heal on their way home.

How should this be handled?

Remove the resting requirement. Maybe give them hardy.

The accelerated healing is taken into account by the marines unnatural toughness which doubles their toughness bonus effectively doubling the speed at which they heal (8 wounds per day rather than 4 when lightly wounded).

Also, many of them gain fairly early access to hardy. I would also say the healing ability is represented in the fact that they have a crap load of wounds. Sure, they don't really heal them back, but it represents the ability to soak alot of damage, and not really be affected by it.

Then again, it depends on what you understand under "wounded" and healing.

From where I stand, as long as you haven't suffered severe wounds (one left) or criticals, nothing bad has really happened.

After the critical hit, I would just narrate the reconvalescence differently, ie Energy Critical 7 - Body (RT p252) -

"intense power cooks target's lungs and heart, stunned 2D10 rounds and reduces toughness by half" - make that 1D10, and have the character hoarse for half an hour,

And all the burns, fractures and maimed limbs heal faster. That has the big advantage of sparing the player a maimed character - mostly.....

Remind me again the justification for them having accelerated healing? I was always thought that "not bleeding to death" was a good enough bonus without including regeneration!

(That and if there is a substantial reason other than making Marines more awesomez, it also means that I'm going to have to update my template for them!)

Kage

The easiest justification is to read any piece of fluff where a space marine gets injured.

The Blood Angels books (Deus Encarmine and Deus Sanguinius), Brotherhood of the Snake, Soul Hunter (probably my favourite of an enormous Black Library collection), etc. They all have the marines recovering from severe damage incredibly quickly.

Although, as mentioned above, their Unnatural Toughness does indeed demonstrate their healing powers. Spending a full day resting heals them twice as well as a normal human.

Thanks for the polite answer. I'm going to ignore the 40k RPG answer because, well, I'm not a fan of the Unnatural Characteristic thing. As to the rest, it seems that it is tied in with the "awesomez" factor rather than being definitive. A high threshold to pain, "insta-clotting," and the advanced technologies of their armour seem to explain much without attributing it to the Marines themselves.

Oh, and I've read much of the same material as everyone else.

Again, though, thanks.

Kage

Lets not overlook 1d10 wounds instantly healed by spending one of their plethora of fate points.

Smells of plot armour.

Kage

Face Eater said:

Not necessarily 'heailing' in anything but a mechanical sense - it's far more fitting, IMO, to describe it as a wound not being as serious as it initially appeared ("it was just a flesh wound, brother"), or the character gaining a second wind and fighting on in spite of injury.