Hi guys

Looking for some opinions (or maybe even rules clarifications if I missed something). My group of players takes turns being gamemasters. But as I am the only apothecary a problem has presented itself - who deals with healing wounds when I'm the gamemaster. We have considered several solutions:

1) tough luck - you didn't bring a medic. People will have to be ultracareful or lose heads, legs and arms very easily over time (since wounds cant be recovered between encounters. In short - don't get wounded.

2) Round-robin-apothecary: We create an apothecary who are "everyones", and when I'm not around (I might also not attend for that session as well as being the GM), someone leaves his normal character at home, and takes control of the "other" apothecary. Not too fond of that solution either, since it seems kind of unfluffy and annoying not to play your "own" char

3) the medicae-servitor. could we bring along "something" that allowed a servitor or similar (for instance using our tech marine?), that allowed a medicae-roll? I imagine a servitor could do regular first aid, but none of the "fancy" stuff such as collecting geneseed, mapping out poisons, saving people from warp-taint etc.

Opinions please! As you might have figured out, I'm sort of biased towards option 3, since that would solve the problem of requiring one specific specialization without having to resort to feeling like you drew the shortest straw (playing a char that isnt "yours").

What say the interwebs?

Clarification: I know about the "geneseed anomaly"-deed, but I think that is kind of unfluffy to have 2 players with the geneseed anomaly for instance (to be certain of having that medicae roll), + one apothecary (me). At least that is very strange

servo skull, costs 15 req from the armoury (requires distinguished, but in light of the situation im sure the GM will bend this just this once, and comes with "one skill to suit its function +20", medicae +20, it also comes with either an auspex, combi tool, las pistol or quill and ink. ask if you can remove that and fix a narthecium on suddenly you have a halfway decent medic. supplemented by fate points that should be sufficient

I second the medicae servo-skull idea.

I know I was looking at one for my group until someone decided that they wanted to play an Apothecary after all.

Problem with the Medicae servo-skull is its IntB of 1. Even equipping it with a Narthecium means it'll only heal about 2 Wounds per Encounter, not helpful. I think I'd simply say Marines can treat Medicae as a Basic skill, maybe charge 100 XP or so for the privilege of attempting First Aid at half Int and let the players get on with it.

The Apothecary doesn't have much thunder to steal, but that's another issue.

The Medicae servo-skull is more designed to assist a character, rather than be the only one doing the healing, I think.

In my group we pull a 'tough luck' approach, no one wanted to make a medic, so they don't have one. They spend fate on healing. Now as a GM I have to take it into consideration when I'm shooting them with Lascannons and the like, but overall they knew what they were getting into when they went sans Apothecary.

To me, the fact that the Apothecary has good 'support' powers but lacks other bits IS part of the problem, as taking their one specialty away and making it a general skill reduces their impact to the team.

If the adventures require the use of healing, what I would personally do is give them something like the servo skull but make it cooler, calculate out how good or inferior to a real apothecary you want it to be, and slap n a req cost to it (more than a simple skull, perhaps 20 or 25).

We have agreed to go the somewhat lame route of 1-2 players taking the Geneseed anomaly Deed from RoB which gives medicae - this creates all sorts of strange situations when my apothecary wants to heal them (he'll spot the anomaly at -20 medicae), and they won't let him do it. I think that is an inherent weakness of having one class that is really required, but at least that makes my character feel really awesome I know we could just change the rules, but the other guys are kind of sticklers for following the exact rules, and I guess a kill-team with no medic would be sort of screwed in the fluff too.

1 - Though luck.

Our group never had a healer. We're just two assault marines and a devestator. We simply have to strike so hard and fast that we don't take many injuries. We've been doing fine so far. Only time someone's died has been in a situation where someone went in somewhere he really shouldn't and insta-died.

We simply use fate to heal ourselves and accept that chances are good that characters will die at some point. But hey, then you get to have fun coming up with a new character, and the military setting of Deathwatch makes it really easy to introduce new characters; "This is Brother [insert name]. He will take the place of your fallen battle-brother."

You could always have a player that plays two characters at once, one being the Apothecary.

As noone in the group wanted to play an Apothecary either, we just use a GM controlled taciturn Apothecary NPC that follows the group around. Also provides a way for the GM to provide hints if the party gets stuck on something by letting the NPC give advice to the group.