One of the things that always bugged me about the 40k RPGs was the ability to spend fate points to instantly heal. The second I read the rule, I got a bad feeling in the pit of my gut. It's just too gamey, too detached from the source material, and frankly too much of a "HEALING SURGE!!!"

Characters could easily save all of their fate points during a mostly roleplay-heavy session, and blow their load all at once at the end as they all miraculously heal gaping wounds, head traumas and hematomas.

The first, and in my opinion, best solution I came up with for this problem was to allow acolytes not to heal with fate, but instead to reduce damage. I understand that healing, especially once you've passed the threshold for heavy wounds, can be slow and painstaking, and one or two fights can easily bring a party down to near-death status, unable to contend anymore.

What I do is allow acolytes to spend fate after being hit, and after hearing the total damage, to reduce that. Instead of healing 1d5 wounds instantly, they can reduce the 8 wounds they took from that lasgun shot by spending a fate point. Fate can be stacked, to reduce 2d5, 3d5 etc. from a single attack.

I found that in practice, it is still giving the acolytes healing (albeit instantaneously at the point of impact), feels much more fluffy (fortune favours you with a grazing blow rather than a kill-shot) and avoids the altogether awkward situation of having the acolytes enter the boudoir leaking vital fluids, and coming out minutes later with a new tan and a slick shave.

What do you guys think?

I like it. Gives the impression that characters are really tough without making something weird, which I think was the original intent of the healing-by-FP rule.

I like how that works.

How many fate points is everyone rolling around with in your games?

I would say the average is about 2 or 3.

The mind-cleansed techie has 4 I think, and the arbitrator started with one, which he immediately spent on the "Proven Innocent" background package, so he has a grand-total of 0.

I am guessing that the average for most parties is going to be about 2 fate per acolyte? I like the extra point or two, because it lets players try more cinematic things, as well as letting me come at them a little harder in a fight, knowing that they are able to shrug off a bit of extra damage.

When I played some D&D again after a year of Dark Heresy, I remember being totally flabbergasted by the lack of fate re-rolls. Someone blew his whole "DAILY POWER OF DESTRUCTION AND DESTINY" and rolled a 1... so I said, "Well no worries, just spend a fate. Then remembered... harsh.

The group that I play in we usually don't save our fate points for the instant heal that much. I did actually used it for my Sundays game, but that was in response to the airship crashing and I wanted to counter balance the damage from impact, but normally we use our fate points for the life and death saves that we fail to make the save throw for. I usually don't even use all my faint points in every game session. Now granted I do all the healing in the party, so that's the real reason why we don't use our faint points for instant heal.

Can I go out on a limb and guess that you're a biomancer?

Generally I didn't let players spend fate points at the end of the session for healing, as at that point they could do it without having to worry about it. During a session is fine, as is at the beginning, as they are making that choice of risking not having the fate point at when they need it. I don't have a problem them using it for "end of session" re-rolls, like trying to find equipment to buy after a mission etc, but not for healing.

That method could work. My concern would be that players are pretty wise to when they'll need re-rolls, and it's not until combat that they're really necessary. An adventure will never hinge off of a single dice-roll, so there'll be nothing in an investigation or role-playing session that will absolutely require a success to allow the game to continue.

My players would drop all their healing near the beginning if they knew that a role-playing session was coming up, with little to no fighting. I also am not personally pleased with the idea that characters can spontaneously heal, in any way. Though of course whatever works for whatever group is the best route to take.

I just felt I'd share my rule since I've had great success with it. It puts more hard choices in the players hands, a common one being whether they want to use their fate point to re-roll that failed dodge or parry check, or save it to reduce the damage by 1d5. More player choice in an RPG can only be a good thing.

@GreyHunter88: No I’m actually a Psyker that took the Scholar route and did telekinetic discipline, I just invested in medicae and I use the minor psychic power Healer first when treating players and then I treat them for with first aid. I invested a lot into medicae with additional skills and talents and of course a medkit.

Good stuff. Medicae is the RIGHT way to heal in my books! ;-)

We have a hospitaller who has a medicae skill in the 80s, to the point where she was still passing first-aid checks after having her hand ripped off. Even so, once people start getting wounded, there's little that medicae can do. Bringing them up to -3 from -4, while helpful, isn't usually enough to save them.

Medicae for extended healing is great though, since it really speeds up the annoying downtime between adventures where players have to spend months in bed healing. My adventures are usually fast and furious though, so there's little time for any of that "resting" stuff! A psyker would help them out a lot, but unfortunately for them their Inquisitor (and half the party) have hatred psykers, and think that anything from milk going sour, to asteroid strikes, should be blamed on characters like yours.

Ah the best weapon to fight other psykers is a psyker, because who else can sense another psyker at such low to mid-levels, ok granted I don’t know what the sisters of battle or clerics can do to find psykers though so I’m going with using a psyker.

Well I don’t know about your party, I usually use the Healer power to bring them within range of lightly wounded and then if they are still heavily wounded I heal another 2 wounds or if they are lightly wounded I heal for 6 wounds with first aid @ 100%, but granted no one usually dies during combat and this is all after combat though.

That’s actually funny about the my group, their characters hate my character, well the assassin and the two arbit and guardsmen do and always have, but the scum (our normal GM, just taking a break) and the tech-priest (new to the gaming group) don’t though. Which makes me laugh because our last game were being rescued, I had arrest orders on me by a different inquisitor and the cleric they sent (another PC that was just in for the day) was to take me in. When we touch down we had twenty guys waiting to take me in and my party would not let me be taken. I would’ve of happily went with them if they produced the right paper work. Well a fight broke out and with two teleports from me, I was able to indirectly crash a ship and kill everyone while my whole party made it out alive, even our guardsmen that took the total impact of the crashing ship. I love being a psyker ;P

Great system for healing, although i don't think my players know you can heal for 1d5 damage using fate, i never liked that rule though, this seems like the perfect solution. what ranks are all your characters, a medicae skill of 80 seems really great, even for a higher level, character, although the hospitilar probably has a medicae +20 by 4th rank right??

I never liked the instant heal ability that fate points allow. I made sure to make it as a damage reduction at the time my players are wounded.

I have implemented the House Rule of allowing Players to reduce the damage from a damaging hit by spending a Fate Point, rather than allowing them to heal damage. As others have described in this thread, I view it as a sudden fortune of fate the PC experiences as the hit (not attack) becomes a grazing strike rather than a solid hit. I only allow one Fate Point per combat round to be expended in this manner, and as we are using the combat rules as outlined in Black Crusade it may be of little consequence if a PC suffers the assault of an opponent with a set of Talents including Ambidextrous, Blade Master, Hatred (Inquisition), Two-Weapon Wielder, Blade Dancer, Lightning Attack and etc. Such an opponent has the capability of attacking twice, hitting a number of times equal to his/her WS bonus (which could be 6, 8 or 10 hits), and even armed with seemingly insignificant poniards could whittle a PC's Wound total to zero (or less) in one combat round.

That being said...

The Dark Heresy Core Rules clearly state the Medicae Skill may be used "once to treat each wound" and each Medicae Skill Test is a Full Action for both the Medicae-skilled PC and the PC being treated, implying a PC struck three times in combat would have three treatable wounds, and a sufficiently skilled PC treating a sufficiently hardy PC can treat each wound separately and bring his/her patient back to full Wounds total after each PC spends three Full Actions administering/seeking treatment. Each wound is treated separately, so a PC suffering eight separate hits doing 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3 and 3 wounds (in one combat round from the opponent described above) might be healed for most (if not all) of that damage, after each PC spends eight Full Actions administering to/seeking treatment for wounds, if considered to be lightly wounded, or 8 of that damage if considered to be heavily wounded. Allowing Players to spend Fate Points to reduce damage taken from a hit represents the time-saving graces of fortune in the heat of a swirling melee. Honestly, who has time to drop out of a bloody engagement for three or four combat rounds to seek treatment while their compatriots continue fighting for their very lives?

Obviously, Critical Damage is of greater concern to a PC, but each separate Critical wound may be treated with the Medicae Skill, the same as non-Critical wounds. It may be important to consider the order in which Critical damage is treated (Blood Loss before lesser effects). It is important (when using the Black Crusade Righteous Fury/Zealous Hatred rules) to differentiate between Critical wound effects generated by a RF/ZH hit and actual wounds that reduce a PC into Critical (negative) wounds. This means a little more record keeping on the part of the Players...then again, it seems things have been done incorrectly for some time and this record keeping was intended from the inception of the rules. There really is no more record keeping to be done for the GMs (mooks are mooks and either die at zero or the first Critical zinger), unless of course it's important to track for truly heinous villains (a Nemesis would be a good example), though we (all GMs) know that Players (and by extension their PCs) care nothing for plot devices when it comes to putting down the villainous masterminds of the 41st Millenium...

"He's down?! I cut his head off, burn it to ashes and jettison them into the void at the first opportunity that presents itself ! Let's see him get back up after that! Explain that away with Touched By Fate!"