I've played all of the 40K RPGs to date, and I have become accustomed to coming across seemingly contradictory or confusing parts of the rules that would greatly benefit from further elaboration in either FAQ or Errata form. The one I keep coming back to with Deathwatch is how Critical Wounds, a Narthecium and Enhanced Healing all are supposed to interact. One good concise example could have addressed all of this in the rule book (or errata). I find it particularly frustrating that in DW every time there has been healing in a game I'm in it is by an Apothecary with a Narthecium, and almost every instance the Apothecary has Enhanced Healing, yet the none of the examples include these ubiquitous factors.

I've played with different GMs and I have run games of my own, and it seems like everyone interprets these rules differently. I am curious how folks interpret the rules in this regard, and please point out if I am missing something obvious. I'll use an example to address the specifics.

Brother Eniram has 20 Wounds, a TB of 8, does not have the Hardy Talent and has just taken 28 points of damage after adjusting for Armor and Toughness. This reduces Eniram to 0 wounds and Critical 4 (True Grit cuts the Crit Damage in half, and like all DW marines Eniram has this talent). Apothecary Setratsa arrives on the scene and wants to apply first aid to Brother Eniram. Setratsa has the Enhanced Healing Special Ability and is employing the use of his standard issue Narthecium. The Apothecary succeeds on his First Aid roll. Now the question is, how much damage is healed?

First lets check to see whether Eniram is Lightly, Heavily or Critically Damaged. One would assume that he is critically damaged, as he has taken 4 Critical Damage. However the wording of Lightly Damaged says "A character is considered lightly Damaged if he had taken Damage equal to or less than twice his Toughness Bonus." (pg. 262 DW Core) Since the Apothecary has a Narthecium, though it "raises the threshold at which the patient is considered Lightly Wounded to 3 times his Toughness Bonus, and doubles the amount of damage healed by First Aid." (pg. 173 DW Core). Three times a TB of 8 equals 24, which is the amount of damage that Eniram took (20 normal and 4 crit. If you want to count the additional 4 crit that True Grit kept him from taking, then use an example instead where he took 24 damage, putting him at crit 2 before healing). Is he Lightly or Critically Damaged?

One would think that Critically wounded characters couldn't ever be Lightly Damaged, however there is the Hardy Talent which does just that (which is why I specified above, that in this example he doesn't have Hardy). I think that Brother Eniram in this case would be Critically Wounded, however I would appreciate it being spelled out in the rules to remove any doubt.

So, assuming Eniram is Critically Wounded, he would ordinarily only be able to remove 1 damage. But now we get to the real conundrum. Setratsa has a Narthecium which as I quoted above "doubles the amount of damage healed by First Aid." A simple matter if you don't have Enhanced Healing, as it would double to 1 Critical Damage removed to 2. However, like all three Apothecaries I've played and nearly every Apothecary I've encountered in the more than a dozen different play groups of DW I've been in, Setratsa has Enhanced Healing which allows him to "restore 1d5 additional Wounds with any successful Medicae Test for First Aid (see page 102)." (pg. 69 DW Core)

Enhanced Healing is problematical for two reasons:

1) It doesn't tell us how it works with the multiplier of the Narthecium. Do I double healing with First Aid and then add 1d5, or do I add the additional 1d5 before I multiply?

2) The phrasing "restore 1d5 additional Wounds" differs from "removes Damage" (First Aid pg. 102 DW Core), which is the phrase used everywhere else that healing is addressed. Was this difference intentional, implying that it can't remove Critical Damage (if so why didn't they say so) or is it simply an oversight, and restoring wounds is meant to be the same as removing damage?

If you can't use Enhanced Healing to remove Critical Damage then the multiplier is still an issue for any Astartes who is Heavily or Lightly Damaged. I assume, folks with Critical Damage and Hardy would be in the same boat as well. If Brother Eniram had Hardy and Apothecary Setratsa rolls a 5 for Enhanced Healing then does he remove (1x2)+5 damage, bringing him to 3 wounds? Or does he remove (1+5) x 2 damage, bringing him to 8 wounds?

An additional complication if one interprets the second issue in such a way that 'removing damage' and 'restoring wounds' are indeed intentionally different and that at the same time nothing stops the Enhanced Healing ability from kicking in and that you can restore wounds without having removed all Critical Damage. In this way, the First Aid would remove 2 Critical damage bringing Eniram to Crit 2, but would also add 1d5 to his wounds. Of course in practice this doesn't make it much different than simply allowing the Enhanced Healing to remove the Critical. The only exceptions I could see is when Talents such as Crack Shot were used. I don't think this was what was intended, instead I bring it up to point out what seems to be a problem with the word choice of the Enhanced Healing Special Ability.

Thanks for reading! What do you think?

Hereticool said:

Sorry for the double post, but I made an error above and couldn't edit my post. If Brother Eniram had Hardy, then he would be considered lightly damaged and thus the base heal would be Setratsa's Intelligence Bonus. For this example let's say it's 5. So it should read:

If Brother Eniram had Hardy and Apothecary Setratsa rolls a 5 for Enhanced Healing then does he remove (5x2)+5 damage, bringing him to 11 wounds? Or does he remove (5+5) x 2 damage, bringing him to 16 wounds?

The first set of numbers would have held true if he didn't have Hardy and it was ruled that he could apply the Enhanced Healing to Critical, and the order of operations for the Narthecium would still being unclear.

You need to differentiate between Wounds and Critical Damage (which are not strictly wounds, but an additional 1-10 track of its own). Critical Damage are not strictly Wounds as I see it.

The level of damage--Light or Heavy--goes to Wounds only. That's where the Narthecium and Hardy kick in to shuffle around what counts as "Lightly Wounded" and what is "Heavily Wounded." Effectively most Marines will always be Lightly Wounded when being healed with a Narthecium unless they just have an obscene number of Wounds from Sound Constitution. This is also reading the transition point between Lightly to Heavily Wounded to occur with the application of Unnatural Toughness, not the unmodified Toughness Bonus, which would make healing between fights difficult if not pointless without spending Fate. An optimized T 70 Marine would thus be heavily wounded after 21 Wounds if Unnatural Toughness wasn't in play; a more "normal" Marine with an unmodified TB if 4 would be Heavily Wounded after 12 Wounds, and I don't think that's the intent. Maybe it is with the Narthecium, since that 12 will turn into 18, and all Marines have at least 18 Wounds. Something to ponder.

Critical Damage is a separate track. I view it almost like the -1 to -10 Dying HP in D&D, except that heals affect it differently.

I would not allow Enhanced Healing to heal Critical Damage. You heal 1 point flat, or 2 once you have Master Chirurgeon. I would maybe be OK with doubling the amount healed as per the Narthecium rules: 2 without Master Chirurgeon, 4 with. That makes some sense given the Narthecium.

Taken another way, if Enhanced Healing can heal crits, then low levels of crit just don't matter. I don't think that's the intended grit level. It's enough that a Marine can go from 0 Wounds to full with one application of Medicae and spending a Fate Point. Critical 2 is something that should make a Marine nervous, because now you're close to death. Even under the most liberal reading (Narthe improves Master Chirurgeon allowing for 4 Critical Damage to be healed), a Marine at Critical 4 has 0 Wounds. He can then spend a Fate to heal some Wounds but Medicae won't heal any more. He's then sitting any max 10 wounds, probably less - likely to get knocked back into crits on a new attack, and now capped at that number of Wounds until he can sit around in a medbay for a day or two healing naturally (since Medicae can only heal damage from an attack once).

(1) As to double before adding, yes. Just like every other effect (e.g. apply Unnatural Strength and then add 20 to Strength and 2 to SB from the power armor...not applying the 20 before applying the Trait). Multiplicative before additive. Double then +1d5.

(2) That is how I read it. 1d5 Wounds, not 1d5 Damage. Critical Damage is not technically damage to Wounds. Therefore Enhanced Healing does not apply. And I think logically you cannot regain Wound while Critical Damage is in effect. So if you're at 6 Crit and your Apothecary with Master CHirurgeon heals you, they remove 2 or 4, depending on the reading of the Narthecium. Even with Enhanced Healing, they do not add 1d5 to your Wounds, because you still have Critical Damage.

These are good questions. You should submit a formal rules question. The link is at the very bottom of the page.

Also see this thread for a somewhat related question answered.

Did we ever get confirmation that fate points can't heal critical damage? Because what a smart player would do is heal via fate points first, then allow first aid...

It is plainly stated in the Fate Points part of the Core Book that Fate Healing does not effect Critical Damage.