Hello fellow Battle-Brothers,

I have a question about the Medicae Skill and its use First Aid.

At the end of the description is written [..] only be applied to each wound once [..]

So what is meant by each ?

As far as I understand it you do not count wounds but damage in Deathwatch. You compare your damage to your wound score to decide whether you are lightly, heavy or critically damaged.

Do I need to keep track of the number the Space Marine received damage? "One blow for 7 damage and a second blow for 12 damage. So the first "wound" is reduced from 7 damage to 3 damage after a successfull first aid skill and..."

Oh boy!

Best regards,

TechVoid.

The way I handle it is that once a player has had first aid and 10 wounds remaining. He is damaged down to 5 wounds remaining, then gets first aid again. This second first aid attempt, no matter how good it is, will not be able to heal any more than 5 wounds.

That is one way to play it, and I can understand how you came to that ruling.

I've generally played it as you can get First Aid once per combat that you've taken damage in. I'd probably add Bilateral's amendment for scenarios where it was First Aid -> Wounded -> First Aid within the same combat.

agreed. that's the way i'm planning on handling it. it already stretchs the imagination to think that the 5 wounds inflicted by a gun can be instantly healed by an apothecary but you can poo-poo that away due to the marines' enhanced physiology. saying that fixing an arm wound of 3 with a first aid role granting 5 back and having them magically carry over to a leg wound sustained earlier is too much.

Now I am surprised.

I thought I would be told that I did not understand it well. But now it seems (after 3 posts) that it is not clear at all?

Isn't DW the third product of a series after Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader? How has it been handled there?

Best regards,

TechVoid.

TechVoid said:

Part of your issue here is semantics. You have "current" wounds, and total wounds. "Damage" is taken at the point of the attack, and reduces your "current" wounds.

What it means by "each wound once" is mostly to prevent players from using first aid as a means of recovering to full wounds between encounters (without down time on the order of days).

Basically, once first aid is used, it cannot be used again until you lose more wounds. Once you gain "new" wounds, you can attempt first aid again.

At least, tahts my RAW reading of this.

KommissarK said:

Oh boy,

so we have the following situation:

Apothecarius: "I treated your wounds but your current wounds are still bellow your total wound score."

Space Marine: "How much bellow?"

Apothecarius: "4 points."

Space Marines: "And you cannot heal them?"

Apothecarius: "No, you need to be wounded again."

Space Marine: "Okay, how much can you damage me with a punsh after reducing power armor and toughness bonus?"

Apothecarius: "If I roll well, let's say 2 damage..."

Space Marine: "And how much can you heal will your medicae skill?"

Apothecarius: "4 or 5 points I gues..."

Space Marines: "Okay, that's more than you damage me and will heal the last wounds. Go for it..."

I love metagaming!

In fact, an Apothecary with a narthecium and the proper trait chosen at character creation can heal much more than 4-5 wounds :

Int Bonus (Medicae: First Aid) x 2 (Narthecium) + 1D5 (Apothecary training) can raise up to scores like 17 wounds on a single first aid roll!

Actually, my players did not want to play apothecaries because they thought it was both too limited (apothecaries can hardly do anything in combat compared to any other characters) and too powerful (that was a bit more of my thoughts...) to be able to heal ad vitam eternam between all encounters with such a character in the group.

So, to circumvent the healing problem, I authorized a limited and much less powerful version of Glory of the Emperor that could be bought from rank 1 by their Ultramarine Librarian.

It's your call if you want to jump through all the hoops of tracking what damage has been "treated" already, and can therefore not be treated via first aid.

I can tell you that its enough bookkeeping, to not be fun, at least, in some styles of play. If you want a more "simulation" oriented game, go for it. In general, metagaming in that fashion should just plain not be allowed.

So I see, I have to think about it how to handle it in my gaming group. Which method they prefer or how they understand the RAW.

As I said before, I am just surprised that there is so much interpretation left for first aid. On the one hand it is a important issue on the battle field and second it is the third book of this series.

Best regards,

TechVoid.

Each wound once...

I rule that as each time a character recieves a single injury....

Example:
12 damage total

No.:
1)Bolter hit: 7 Wounds damage
2) Las hit: 2 Wounds damage
3) Shotgun to the head: 3 Wounds damage (should have worn a helmet, stupid space wolf)

Those are 3 wounds......each can be treated once,

Santiago said:

That's how I do it too.

TechVoid said:

Sounds like a bag of rats to me. Then again, I can't remember seeing anything from FFG disallowing the bag of rats. Your sense of honor on the other hand....

i agree with santiago, i think in this case they meant injury instead of wound.

so a marine takes 8 points to his leg, 4 points to his arm and 5 points to his torso then the medic can treat each injury and heal up to the amount each location took, making it possible to drag around a few wounds that do not get completely healed.

some wounds are minor enough to be okay after a band aid is slapped on, some are deeper and need a bit of more work and time to heal.

Santiago said:

I think this method will lead to first aid spam until full wounds much more often. The basic Apothecary can heal 8 woulds out of the box, +1d5 with the right special. That means in 3 rounds the above marine would be at full health. And most definitely all marines would be healed to full between each combat.

Whereas with the 1 per combat, the Apothecary would heal 8, leaving 4 wounds still missing. Even with the extra 1d5, there's a 60% chance there would still be wounds missing.

TechVoid said:

And that is why you need to prevent the same injury being treated twice. You have several options in this thread, the main difference between them being how much bookkeeping is needed to use each one.

Each wound once...

I rule that as each time a character recieves a single injury....

Example:
12 damage total

No.:
1)Bolter hit: 7 Wounds damage
2) Las hit: 2 Wounds damage
3) Shotgun to the head: 3 Wounds damage (should have worn a helmet, stupid space wolf)

Those are 3 wounds......each can be treated once,

That sounds like it will have major bookkeeping when your space marines run into enemies which never deal more than 1 wound per hit, but are able to nearly kill one of them through sheer numbers.

Isn't there any possibility to get an official answer from FFG?

I mean we have many posts in here from "As I understand the RAW..." to "Depends on the amount of bookkeeping you are willing to.."

But to simply get the original intention from the game designers.

Bes regards,

TechVoid.

TechVoid said:

Send the question to them here .

I'm interested to see their response.

Here is my interpretation of the rules, which make Wounds a dwindling resource throughout a mission:

Keep track of "Untreatable Wounds" which are accrued like this:

Brother Corpus takes 12 wounds from a variety of sources during a combat.

After the fight ends, Brother Medicus heals him for 8 wounds.

Corpus now has 4 points of "Untreatable Wounds": Wounds which *could* have been cured (since they were 'fresh'), but were not.

If, in the next fight, Corpus loses 2 wounds, and Medicus again restores 8 , he *really* only restores 2 because that is how many 'fresh' wounds Corpus took this fight. Medicae abilities cannot treat accrued "Untreatable wounds" on the spot. On the bright side, Corpus didn't get any additional "Untreatable Wounds" this fight.

In a third battle, Corpus loses another 10 wounds and Medicus again restores 8. Corpus adds 2 more for a total of 6 "Untreatable Wounds".

Getting rid of "Untreatable Wounds" requires either the expenditure of Fate Points, Extended Care, Natural Healing or Bed Rest.

I guess it comes down to GM style and preference. I think that if players get 'topped off' after every fight, then it's harder to build dramatic tension over the course of a mission, and does not punish sloppy playing and bad tactics : "So long as we win the fight and don't die, it doesn't matter how poorly we did, we'll be OK by the next one."

while this method will require book keeping, its the one i'm planning on using for the campaign. each player will get a post it note for their character sheet for tracking their wounds and must keep a "log" of their wounds. when recieving first aid, they can heal all but 1 of their wounds from each injury with a first aid check. a gunshot to the head (even for the marine) can only heal so much with a space-bandaid and enhanced physiology; that last wound point will have to heal naturally. by keeping track with a running total of their wounds on the post it note (instead of erasing and replacing it on the sheet), it's relatively easy to heal during/after combat.

If I remember correctly, first aid can be applied every 12 hours. So an apothecary can heal a Battle Brother once every 12 hours, unless he gets wounded again.

So for example: Brother Fluvius loses 12 wounds in a vicious fight with a Khorne Berserker. His Kill-Teams apothecary Brother House treats his wounds after the battle, so he regains 10 wounds. Brother House can heal him again after 12 hours has passed (cleaning wounds, restiching them or the like) BUT can trest him if he gets wounded again in another fight.

We use it this way.

Brother Chaplain Magister said:

Sorry, I mean: "...can treat him if he gets..."

I some tiems miss tpye words

Brother Chaplain Magister said:

i don't recall seeing that restriction; only that each "wound" can only have first aid applied once to it. you can use extended care once a day for lightly wounded characters but that's not 12 hours either.

I use a damage track (boxes, basically), and the wounds are marked by ticking a box corresponding to the damage received. Like this:

- - - - X - - - X - - X

So, above, there are three received wounds, one for five points, one for four and one for three. Makes it simple enough to keep track of separate wounds.

Sanguinary Priest said:

You are right. The 12 hours came from - if I remember correctly - a forum topic, and I suggested it, because it made sense to us useing the skill that way.

If First Aid can be applied to any wound any number of times, what do you need extended care for ? You just keep rolling for first aid, getting back the wounded to max Wounds really qiuckly. IMHO it does not work that way. First aid mean you takeing care of the wounded while bullets flies past your ear, a vicious melee rages on or after the battle. First Aid is for stopping blood loss and quicly stiching up wounds not for full recovery within minutes.

NO OFFENSE MEANT!