I was blind, now I can seeeeee *thud*

[Urban Spaceman]

In other words, how do some people deal with med packs and healing?
Not natural healing times (got them) but more to do with using med packs, and how long it takes to recover from the injury, once treated.

I'm a little concerned that my players might treat med packs like it's a computer game, an unrealistic one, at least.

For example:
"I'm injured. Sprained my ankle in that fall"
"Ok, l've got a med pack. Lay still" - Rolls good enough to heal the Wounded status
"There you go, you are fully healed. Let's race to the next encounter".

I'd like to have something in place to stop mad packs becoming a 'miracle treatment', but don't want to get bogged down too much with tracking injury stats and dice penalties etc.

Anyone got any good ideas/thoughts/experience, or should I just go with common sense (the last resort, of course )
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"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."

[Fallon Kell]

I go a little more in depth. For example, if a player has a broken arm, they can splint it and numb it with a medpack, so it won't become further injured and the 1D penalty will only apply to certain actions involving the arm. It will still take time to heal fully and you'll have to deal with things like splints side effects of painkillers and such.
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Or that excessively long "Noooooooooo" was the Whining Side of the Force leaving him. - Dustflier

Complete Starship Construction System

[garhkal]

Keep them reminded that each med pack used within the same 24 hours increases the category of being healed by 1.. Even if you healed up fully.

So lets take john the rebel saboteaur. He gets wounded in battle.. A wound is an easy medic roll..
Later in that day, he gets hit in a bar fight for another wound.. but as healing this with a med pack is his 2nd in the day, its actually now a moderate first aid roll.

Not even a hour later, he is now having imperials chasing him. He gets hit by a nasty blaster bolt and goes to incap. As normally this would be a 15 diff (moderate), but healing him is the third time in the day med packs have been used, he is now needing a 25 on the roll (regardless of whom it is healing him). If that succeeds, and they use another one to heal his wound (as you shift from incap to wounded twice, then once), that 2nd pack would be also at 25 (easy for wound, with 3 cat shifts).. The last wound would actually be at heroic.

And as a rule i have commonly seen, rolling 5 or less on a med pack roll, overdrives the system making it to where you can't use another med pack for 24 hours period.
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Bren]

[ZzaphodD]

Normally it takes one hour to go from wounded to unwounded with a Medpack. If you roll higher than the target number required, it will go faster. As we have a good medic (I think around 6-7D) it usually ends up at around 15-20 minutes.

We have actually changed fastflesh. They are actually harder to use (one difficulty harder), but only need half the time to heal the character.
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My Biggest Beard Retard award goes to: The Admiral of course..

[jmanski]

I like Fallon's idea, along with Gark's increasing difficulty.

I guess I'm just a little evil like that...
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Blasted rules. Why can't they just be perfect?

[garhkal]

That's actually by the book...
Page 98 revised.

[jmanski]

I have somehow missed that part. It does help to balance it, at least somewhat.
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Blasted rules. Why can't they just be perfect?

[garhkal]

I have been considered harsh cause i DO use it as wrote.
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Bren]

Well that's frustrating. I had a post, but I lost it. I will try to recreate it.

Where I really see the need for something like Urban and Fallon are arguing for is when a character is wounded severely and multiple medpacs are used to bring them up to full health. Having a wounded character recover full health doesn't bother me, but a character who is Incapacitated, then (3) medpacs are administered to bring the character to stunned (which then wears off) and now the character is good as new. This strains my credulity, removes some interesting dramatic possibilities for characters to remain injured for more than a few rounds, and makes advanced medical treatment like bacta, surgery, or medicine less necessary. I am considering one of the following modifications.

1) Limit the level of health that can be returned to the character's Ds of STR. So a STR 3D human could only return 3 levels of health. One consequence is it increases the bullet proof Wookiee syndrom.

2) Limit the levels of penalty that can be removed to 3 levels. A character can still be healed up past that, but the penalty remains until advanced medical treatment (bacta tank or an equipped sickbay or surgery with an appropriate medicine roll) or sufficient time spent resting.

Examples for characters with various wound levels:
Wounded - can have up to three levels of penalty removed. So one medpac successfully applied will raise the character from (Wounded --> Stunned) and the stun will wear off in time. So the character will be returned to full health.

[/b] - can have up to three levels of penalty removed. So two medpacs successfully applied will raise the character from (Woundedx2 --> Wounded --> Stunned) and the stun will wear off in time. So the character will be returned to full health.

Incapacitated - three medpacs will heal the character from Incapped --> Woundedx2 --> Wounded --> Stunned, but since only three levels of penalty can be removed the character continues to act as if they are stunned (with a -1D penalty due to bruises, aches, & pains along with the encuberance of bandages, casts, or splints as well as a reduction in the number of additional stuns required to render the character unconcious) until they receive advanced medical treatment or rest.

Mortally Wounded - three medpacs will heal the character from Mortal --> Incapped --> Woundedx2 --> Wounded, and they will remain wounded until they receive advanced medical treatment or rest.

I think this adds some additional reality, some possibilities for drama, and increases the pain of being wounded without adding too much book keeping.

Thoughts?

[garhkal]

One option i saw is that it heals the immediate level, and resultant penalty, but the wound itself still remains..
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Bren]

[jmanski]

So you're saying an Incapacitated character who is treated with a medpak is still Incapacitated, but shows no ill effects until healed?

I might like that idea.
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Blasted rules. Why can't they just be perfect?

[garhkal]

Corrrect... The wound penalty (and for incap/mortally wounded) they are consious, but the actual wound is still there.
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Urban Spaceman]

Bren, yes, you are spot on with the problem I've been trying to resolve in my own head.

I like both yours and Garhkals take on this.
I'm going to try garhkals method first, as it's slightly easy to impliment with the way I have been running it until now.
If I'm not happy with the results (which largely rely on Player role-play), then I'll switch.

I'll also try to re-enforce the problems the injury gives them after healing by including refrences to it in descriptions of events.
For example:
"You parry the attack with your vibroblade. The impact of the blow vibrates along the weapon to your arm. You grimace slightly, as pain shoots through your arm. The med-pack fixed you good, but the doc wasn't lying when he recommended you rest that arm for a few days".
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"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."