In the vein of min-maxing soak and wound threshold, it seems that healing is one powerful skill as well. By healing, I mean the medical skill

The resident healer in our group has 3 proficiency dice and 2 ability dice.

Add to that, that "an encounter" is not very well defined, and he is able to make almost unlimited medical checks, keeping everyone in tip-top shape at all times.

It has come to making med. checks just to try to cure 1 or 2 strain.

I thought about house-ruling that you can only make a med. check per character once every 24 hours, but that also seems harsh.

It kind of takes the challenge out of the game, when the entire group is untouchable.

Any suggestions?

...or just too powerful enough?

Wound Threshold doesn't seem to get silly in this game so having someone put you back on your feet helps you get into the next encounter with confidence. Nobody's going to be looking for a way out of your adventure if they can be patched up a bit before the next action sequence, so flow is maintained.

"Encounter" is a term I've never found to be too vague. Are you being attacked? Do you have 10 minutes before you will be? Have you been successfully patched up since the last time you were injured? If the answer to the first two is "yes" and "no" to the third, then I'd expect some healing is possible.

Just exhaust the medical supplies of your team if they over use medicine. Your "healer" need medikit to do the job, with nothing he or she cannot achieve the same results.

If your players know that using their medical supplies will exhaust them, they will be more careful about using them.

In the vein of min-maxing soak and wound threshold, it seems that healing is one powerful skill as well. By healing, I mean the medical skill

The resident healer in our group has 3 proficiency dice and 2 ability dice.

Add to that, that "an encounter" is not very well defined, and he is able to make almost unlimited medical checks, keeping everyone in tip-top shape at all times.

It has come to making med. checks just to try to cure 1 or 2 strain.

I thought about house-ruling that you can only make a med. check per character once every 24 hours, but that also seems harsh.

It kind of takes the challenge out of the game, when the entire group is untouchable.

Any suggestions?

I would start by sitting down and defining what you feel encounter should be. In this game FFG for good or ill has left a lot of things vague in order to give the GM lots of room for interpretation.

For me, combat is an encounter, usually a particular non-cobat scene is an encounter, but not every transition in between is an encounter.

PC: "Oh we just got done convincing the Zabrack to join our cause and we are heading back to the ship. This must be a new encounter".

GM: "Nope, this is just a transition scene to a new encounter."

Other than making sure you define to your players what constitutes an encounter, I wouldn't do much beyond that. The PC sounds like he has invested a lot of effort in being the doc, let him or her do the healing thing. For a long while you aren't going to be the combat monkey. Unless you pair it with marauder or otherwise put a large focus on brawl. Speaking as someone who is playing a doctor in another game, finding a moment to shine isn't easy. Other than stimming up the combat-heavy guys, I am not usually doing much else.

Other than making sure you define to your players what constitutes an encounter, I wouldn't do much beyond that. The PC sounds like he has invested a lot of effort in being the doc, let him or her do the healing thing.

Exactly. I don't want to rain on his parade, but I would like the game to a bit more challenging.

Thanks for everyone's input so far.

Just exhaust the medical supplies of your team if they over use medicine. Your "healer" need medikit to do the job, with nothing he or she cannot achieve the same results.

If your players know that using their medical supplies will exhaust them, they will be more careful about using them.

Something to this effect is what I've been considering for my group. Make it something they need supplies for, or else its really just a 'temporary' fix (Think Temporary HP) that requires the character to spend some time in a medbay later.

It also gives you something new to make your characters pay for, giving more of that feeling of 'desperate for money' that drives every group into trouble.

Just exhaust the medical supplies of your team if they over use medicine. Your "healer" need medikit to do the job, with nothing he or she cannot achieve the same results.

If your players know that using their medical supplies will exhaust them, they will be more careful about using them.

That is a lot easier said than done. The Medpac grants one free stimpack per scene. And most characters carries at least a few stimpacks on them as well. The CRB does not state that the Medpac is a one time use item either.

I do think that healing in this system is pretty easy, but then, combat is fast and potentially pretty hazardous. You don't have "near miss" or "close shave" points to spend during combat, and natural healing takes a long time. As the characters advance up, they don't get harder to hit either like some systems. It's oh, your level 15, I can't hit you for three more levels. From what I have seen so far, the Bacta tanks seem kind of broke to me. I have not used them yet in my games, but they seem really underwhelming to me.

So my take is, yes, healing in this game is quick, but so is taking damage. I don't think the system is broke. Just different, and we are all still getting used to it.

I don't like the idea of Temp HP. That reeks too much of other systems.

If you need to have them take a few more points of damage, give the NPC additional damage or have them bypass some soak. More minions in the group will likely lead to more damage, as they get their skills increased, leading to more potential success which means more damage.

Just exhaust the medical supplies of your team if they over use medicine. Your "healer" need medikit to do the job, with nothing he or she cannot achieve the same results.

If your players know that using their medical supplies will exhaust them, they will be more careful about using them.

That is a lot easier said than done. The Medpac grants one free stimpack per scene. And most characters carries at least a few stimpacks on them as well. The CRB does not state that the Medpac is a one time use item either.

I do think that healing in this system is pretty easy, but then, combat is fast and potentially pretty hazardous. You don't have "near miss" or "close shave" points to spend during combat, and natural healing takes a long time. As the characters advance up, they don't get harder to hit either like some systems. It's oh, your level 15, I can't hit you for three more levels. From I have seen so far, the Bacta tanks seem kind of broke to me. I have not used them yet in my games, but they seem really underwhelming to me.

So my take is, yes, healing in this game is quick, but so is taking damage. I don't think the system is broke. Just different, and we are all still getting used to it.

On the topic of stimpacks, they do thankfully have that attribute of becoming weaker overtime. Perhaps as a GM, if you feel your crew is overhealing to a fault, you could extend that weakened effect from 'an encounter' to 'a day' or something to that effect.

Though I agree, it hasn't yet become a problem in my games, because damage is so, as you say, quick.

I definitely feel that the Doctor is an excellent specialization in this game... I don't feel medical skill is too powerful either. The more characters advance, what the go against should advance as well, even if this means crafting NPCs that will give a challenge to the PCs. GM's don't have to stick to the NPCs listed in the CRB and modules, but rather they can use those as templates to scale with the group. A Dr. trying to makes combat medic checks should also be effected by the stress of blaster fire; it takes an action for a skill check and to perform that check, the Dr. should be technically be 'Engaged', which risks putting them in the line of fire. From an NPC perspective, if I see a guy running around healing things I'm shooting at, I'm going to start targeting him as well.

Medkits and Stimpacks do have their limits as well - Stimpacks have limited usage with diminishing returns and medkits only do so much to help out with the checks. Still, a Dr. is going to be excellent in keeping the party alive.

And I agree with R2Builder, Encounter, while loosely described, is up to the GM; one use of the skill during / after combat could be considered once per encounter as a fair measure. But that's really up to your GM.

Bacta isn't necessarily broken as there are some injuries that just don't heal by Medicine alone. Critical injuries are a lot easier to heal in Bacta and the time of healing is sped up as well.

In order to avoid the sort of situation the OP describes I've deliberately interpreted the "once per encounter" healing rule to be "once per combat encounter". In other words, say a player takes 12 wounds in combat and the medic heals him for 8. If the next encounter is a social encounter, the healer can not break out his medpack and heal the remaining 4 wounds during that encounter. Once a character has received a healing check, he can't have another until A) there's another combat encounter, and B) he takes some additional damage in the second encounter. This to avoid the "Someone's shooting at us? I suddenly feel like my previous injuries can do with some more healing". Once the doctor has done his best, the rest is down to bacta, rest or stimpacks.

Just FYI, although the word "encounter" does have a general meaning that could apply to any series of events, in Edge of the Empire an encounter is very specifically defined.

I'm away from my book, but in the section that described "Narrative Gameplay" and "Structured Gameplay", it defines an "encounter" as a sequence of Structured Gameplay. That is, an event where you start tracking initiative and engage in structured play, generally a combat of some kind.

So the way the rules are written, if your party gets in a fight with some Gammorreans and then kills all the Gammorreans, that represents one encounter, a sequence of structured gameplay. The end of this encounter resets any "once per encounter" skills like Medicine checks.

If your doctor then rolls a Medicine check to heal your player, that 'uses up' the doctor's Medicine check until the end of the next encounter.

Then, suppose your party goes to the junk shop and buys a part for your ship.

Then you walk down the street and talk to a food vendor selling Ahrisa.

Then you go to the Starport Control and resolve your needs diplomatically, by talking with the security guards there.

Then you ride speeder bikes to the starport and get in your ship.

I would argue that according to the rules, none of those events qualified as an "encounter", because you didn't use structured gameplay.

An encounter is a sequence of structured gameplay.

Thanks!

Just FYI, although the word "encounter" does have a general meaning that could apply to any series of events, in Edge of the Empire an encounter is very specifically defined.

I'm away from my book, but in the section that described "Narrative Gameplay" and "Structured Gameplay", it defines an "encounter" as a sequence of Structured Gameplay. That is, an event where you start tracking initiative and engage in structured play, generally a combat of some kind.

So the way the rules are written, if your party gets in a fight with some Gammorreans and then kills all the Gammorreans, that represents one encounter, a sequence of structured gameplay. The end of this encounter resets any "once per encounter" skills like Medicine checks.

If your doctor then rolls a Medicine check to heal your player, that 'uses up' the doctor's Medicine check until the end of the next encounter.

Then, suppose your party goes to the junk shop and buys a part for your ship.

Then you walk down the street and talk to a food vendor selling Ahrisa.

Then you go to the Starport Control and resolve your needs diplomatically, by talking with the security guards there.

Then you ride speeder bikes to the starport and get in your ship.

I would argue that according to the rules, none of those events qualified as an "encounter", because you didn't use structured gameplay.

An encounter is a sequence of structured gameplay.

Thanks!

All technically true . Any sane GM would laugh his ass off if you argued for a Medic check after each though.

Just FYI, although the word "encounter" does have a general meaning that could apply to any series of events, in Edge of the Empire an encounter is very specifically defined.

I'm away from my book, but in the section that described "Narrative Gameplay" and "Structured Gameplay", it defines an "encounter" as a sequence of Structured Gameplay. That is, an event where you start tracking initiative and engage in structured play, generally a combat of some kind.

So the way the rules are written, if your party gets in a fight with some Gammorreans and then kills all the Gammorreans, that represents one encounter, a sequence of structured gameplay. The end of this encounter resets any "once per encounter" skills like Medicine checks.

If your doctor then rolls a Medicine check to heal your player, that 'uses up' the doctor's Medicine check until the end of the next encounter.

Then, suppose your party goes to the junk shop and buys a part for your ship.

Then you walk down the street and talk to a food vendor selling Ahrisa.

Then you go to the Starport Control and resolve your needs diplomatically, by talking with the security guards there.

Then you ride speeder bikes to the starport and get in your ship.

I would argue that according to the rules, none of those events qualified as an "encounter", because you didn't use structured gameplay.

An encounter is a sequence of structured gameplay.

Thanks!

^ Very good description. This, with diminishing returns helps balance out 'over-healing'.

The encounter thing bugged me as well and felt a little bit meta-gamey at our table. "Can we heal now?" was asked quite a few times in our first Beginner Box run. I instituted a couple house rules that, so far, have worked out well.

1. Base Medicine Rule: Each medicine check reflects everything that that particular doctor was able to do for the patient in those particular circumstances. So, there are only three situations in which a patient can receive another check:
   1. The patient receives fresh wounds since his last check.
   2. The patient finds medical facilities that are better (i.e. have more dice) than where he received his last medical check. (see the Triage Rule below for more details)
   3. It's been 24 hours since the patient's last check. This permits a follow-up check to change bandages, administer extra doses of medicine, address complications, etc.
2. Triage Rule: If a patient receives medical treatment out on a battlefield and then comes across a proper medical facility, he can receive treatment there. But, if he hasn't received fresh wounds since his last check, then this new medical facility must roll successes above and beyond what the doctor accomplished out in the battlefield.
   
   Example: A smuggler takes 8 wounds out in the desert. A jawa medic patches him up a bit with 4 success. Later that day, he finds his way to civilization, where there's a local clinic. He goes in for treatment (not trusting the jawa's handiwork) and the doctor there rolls 6 success. This only removes 2 wounds on top of the jawa's 4.
3. Droid repairs: Droids still follow the base rule above for quick patch-up jobs, but outside of that, they can be repaired at any time, provided a mechanic has the parts, tools, and time to do so. The mechanic performs a check to reflect a 1-hour repair job. That number can then be multiplied as many times as necessary to repair the droid. So if a Mechanic rolls a 3 on a droid suffering 10 wounds, it's four hours for a full repair job. If he's got that kind of time, the droid can walk away from the procedure with 0 wounds.

The way I see things is that wounds and strain are sometimes viewed in the same light as HP is in other systems. In the other systems HP was a limiting factor in how long the PC's could go before resting. I don't see it working the same way in EotE.

For me it doesn't matter if they go into every encounter with 0 wounds and 0 strain. What the players need to be worried about are the critical injuries they have. Without any other modifiers from other sources 5 critical injuries makes death a very real possibility on the next critical injury. Failing to heal a critical wound stops any medical checks on it for a week (unless you take other measures to heal it).

If I were going to do a houserule for the medical checks I would do it in a way that turns the checks into a resource for the players to manage.

One way would be to do something similar to how stimpacks work. You could have a certain amount of healing check per 24 hours per character. Essentially the patient's body just wouldn't be able to take advantage of anything done by the healer after a certain point. After that point the only thing you could do with a medical check would be get a downed PC back on their feet and moving.

The other way, and they way I think I would prefer to do it, would be to actually have the checks consume medical resources. It would be an actual item they would buy in a shop. It would have to be used in conjunction with a medpac or emergency medpac. I would probably say both types of medpacs have a set number of uses per 24 hours on their own. The additional ones add encumbrance if you carried enough (maybe +1 encum per 5). I would prefer a system similar to this because it gives the players more control over it rather than some rule that tells them no. They have to manage their encum and money.

Of course that is just a quick idea, there are some problems you'd have to address since you don't have to have a medpac to do medical checks.

1. Triage Rule: If a patient receives medical treatment out on a battlefield and then comes across a proper medical facility, he can receive treatment there. But, if he hasn't received fresh wounds since his last check, then this new medical facility must roll successes above and beyond what the doctor accomplished out in the battlefield.

   Example: A smuggler takes 8 wounds out in the desert. A jawa medic patches him up a bit with 4 success. Later that day, he finds his way to civilization, where there's a local clinic. He goes in for treatment (not trusting the jawa's handiwork) and the doctor there rolls 6 success. This only removes 2 wounds on top of the jawa's 4.

2. Droid repairs: Droids still follow the base rule above for quick patch-up jobs, but outside of that, they can be repaired at any time, provided a mechanic has the parts, tools, and time to do so. The mechanic performs a check to reflect a 1-hour repair job. That number can then be multiplied as many times as necessary to repair the droid. So if a Mechanic rolls a 3 on a droid suffering 10 wounds, it's four hours for a full repair job. If he's got that kind of time, the droid can walk away from the procedure with 0 wounds.

I actually really like these two. I believe it makes sense and I especially think the Triage rule is excellent (subtracting the two healing attempts).

All technically true . Any sane GM would laugh his ass off if you argued for a Medic check after each though.

This is my point!

People are saying stuff like "'after each encounter' is a vague description" or describing an encounter as 'a scene' or something, like if you go into a shop and talk to a merchant... that's a 'scene', but it's not an 'encounter'.

One medicine check for each combat encounter is what's intended by the rules, although of course Structured Gameplay can apply to social encounters as well, if you're using Initiative and going turn-by-turn and so on.

I feel it might have been clearer in the rules if they'd used a capital letter and called it a "Structured Encounter" or something.

If you skipped over the part that says an encounter is a sequence of Structured Gameplay, you might just think the word refers to anything that could be called an 'encounter' in the English language...

I added in healing surges ala 4e D&D to better define healing and cut out reliance on stim potions.

I like to spend threat generated on medicine checks either to make the doctor's medicine bag run low on supplies or to give the healed character a little strain from a difficult treatment--just so the players don't think of a doctor as a panacea.

Probably two things here

1) Does he have enough healing to do all that?

Our group early on defined how much uses a medical kit had.

2) Do they have the time to do it?

If yes, there is no problem. He's doing exactly what he's meant to be doing, provided that he does it all within a given timeframe. The party may look visibly roughed up due to all the bandages, but as far as they are feeling they are ready as they are ever going to be.

If not, then state that he has an amount of time to preform all these checks in, with each one requiring a minimun of a minute/five minutes/whatever time frame to spend treating the parties injuries. Since being able to heal a wound takes considerable amounts of time, including to disinfect, bandage and what not. Treating injuries beyond the application of a stimpack takes some time.

It's not an instantanous check that he can preform, so it isn't a task he can preform while moving or otherwise distracted by other tasks. This results in the very real prospect of them being left at the location the medical aid is being admisitored, though obivously if your travelling in a speeder then the doc will likely have time to adminsitor checks on route, again within the time frame of the journey. So if you don't want them to heal by using heal checks after every encounter, give them a set time to be somewhere else or have something else coming. Need more healing then he can give? You have stimpacks to round off any rough edges until later, unless they want to risk missing that meeting or get sarrounded.

3) How much can you actually patch someone up?

An alternative method would be to introduce how much healing checks one can adminsiter on a person for a period. Afterall, theres only so much you can patch someone up before it becomes increasingly apprent that the only thing keeping them together is morphine and determination. I would probably avoid this if possible since it is a rule that could backfire when they need it the most, but it makes sense.


I hope you have found the answer you are looking for.

our group wasn't aware we could try unlimited times, we allow 1 heal check to be performed after each combat per person with a medpack.

so when combat is over, i use my emergency medpack to conduct self first aid, then the doctor comes over and uses his medpack to heal me again if i need it. the rest of the damage requires resting to heal.

So if you want fair house rules here is some awesom rules i came up with just then in dot point form:

• After every combat, if you suffered damage in that combat you may have some one attempt to heal you.
• 1 attempt to heal each person after combat.
• every stim pack used without 24 hours rest causes double the previous stim packs strain
• A further heal attempt may be made to attempt to heal unrecovered wounds for every day that passes.
• A bacta tank may be used only if the character suffered a critical or has exceeded half his wound threshold.
• After medical supplies are used a number of times equal to cost divided by 50 credits. a Red challenge die must be rolled after each medical check, a further red die is added to the next check for each failure rolled stacking cumulatively, a critical means the medpack is out of supplies and must be restocked, any disadvantage provide a disadvantage dice on the next heal check done with this medpack.

an example of running out of supply rule above is as follows:

using a medpack has 8 heals before a check must be done to see if it is out of supplies, a red die is rolled and a single failure is on the die, so it is low but not out of stock, after the next heal 2 red dice are rolled, and 4 failures come up, after the next heal 4 red dice are rolled and a critical failure is on a die the medpack is now exhausted, and 400 credits must be spent to restock it to full, however if the characters are short on money the can spend 50 credits per charge they wish to put in the pack, so they could spend 200, and get 4 heals before a red die needs to be rolled again.

I like the idea of using stimpacks as two seperate things, which can be declared when using the stimpack:

1) Use the sitmpack under RAW

2) After the second medical procedure performed out a single medpack, a stimpack can be used to supplement the medpack's supplies and allow another procedure. (Each medpack allows for 2 procedures plus the bonuses required, representing the tools of the trade and some starting supplies like gauze and synthflesh packs, and the replacement consumables must be purchased to "refil" the pack)

2) Do they have the time to do it?

If yes, there is no problem. He's doing exactly what he's meant to be doing, provided that he does it all within a given timeframe. The party may look visibly roughed up due to all the bandages, but as far as they are feeling they are ready as they are ever going to be.

If not, then state that he has an amount of time to preform all these checks in, with each one requiring a minimun of a minute/five minutes/whatever time frame to spend treating the parties injuries. Since being able to heal a wound takes considerable amounts of time, including to disinfect, bandage and what not. Treating injuries beyond the application of a stimpack takes some time.

It's not an instantanous check that he can preform, so it isn't a task he can preform while moving or otherwise distracted by other tasks. This results in the very real prospect of them being left at the location the medical aid is being admisitored, though obivously if your travelling in a speeder then the doc will likely have time to adminsitor checks on route, again within the time frame of the journey. So if you don't want them to heal by using heal checks after every encounter, give them a set time to be somewhere else or have something else coming. Need more healing then he can give? You have stimpacks to round off any rough edges until later, unless they want to risk missing that meeting or get sarrounded.

I think a round is a good time measurement for doing a quick patch up of a person, otherwise you make a few talents in the doctor tree useless.

2) Do they have the time to do it?

If yes, there is no problem. He's doing exactly what he's meant to be doing, provided that he does it all within a given timeframe. The party may look visibly roughed up due to all the bandages, but as far as they are feeling they are ready as they are ever going to be.

If not, then state that he has an amount of time to preform all these checks in, with each one requiring a minimun of a minute/five minutes/whatever time frame to spend treating the parties injuries. Since being able to heal a wound takes considerable amounts of time, including to disinfect, bandage and what not. Treating injuries beyond the application of a stimpack takes some time.

It's not an instantanous check that he can preform, so it isn't a task he can preform while moving or otherwise distracted by other tasks. This results in the very real prospect of them being left at the location the medical aid is being admisitored, though obivously if your travelling in a speeder then the doc will likely have time to adminsitor checks on route, again within the time frame of the journey. So if you don't want them to heal by using heal checks after every encounter, give them a set time to be somewhere else or have something else coming. Need more healing then he can give? You have stimpacks to round off any rough edges until later, unless they want to risk missing that meeting or get sarrounded.

I think a round is a good time measurement for doing a quick patch up of a person, otherwise you make a few talents in the doctor tree useless.

Depends whether they do have a real doctor in the party. All our medical checks are done by the machanics, largely because no one is really interested in the role thus far, hence me nor the DM have looked at it in any great detail.

That being said, considering the average round is meant to be considered 1 minute (too long for combat, but good for more leasurely encounters) so I can live with it. I would probably say a medical check in combat would take longer though due to the time taken being shorter, since I can't see anyone fully treating someone in 10 seconds. It just doesn't happen unless you hit them with a stim and stimpacks already exist for that purpose.

It's just my opinon though, personally I found it strange that docs don't gain any benifit from stimpacks, since I always associated the medical packs to much more hands on healing as apposed to a quick perk up.

My last campaign had a Doctor with Intellect 4 and Medicine 3. With few exceptions, nobody was ever hurt for long at all. Even critical hits were casually wiped away in short order. Based on my experiences, healing is way too easy in this system.