“It’s all right, I’m here and they can’t hurt you any more,” Brynn tried to soothe Jade as he adjusted the seat nearly flat and scanned her. Only now, after the jump, was he able to take time to treat the damage the damned Imps had inflicted on the young woman. She became agitated as she sensed Brynn’s anger when he thought of her captors.
“Just lie still for me, Jade, that’s it.” The Twi’lek doctor tried to suppress the strong emotion for his former ward’s sake. But it was very hard to keep from getting even angrier when he saw how fearful she was of the hypo and blood kit. The Imps were to blame for that too, experimenting on the “Jedi” as well as the usual mistreatment. They’d get theirs, Brynn and his team would make sure of it.
But first, right now, he needed to take care of Jade, he reminded himself as he injected the sample into the blood scanner. In a few minutes he’d know what they’d given her and would be able to come up with a specific treatment. “You’ll feel better soon. Try to sleep, okay. You’re safe. I will take care of you, Jade.”
“I know,” she told him sleepily, managing a little smile for him as she drifted off at last.
With Jade asleep, Brynn finished treating the other injuries inflicted by the brutal garrison commander–now the late commander–and his lackeys.
A few minutes later, Brynn settled into the seat next to Jade, studying the results of the blood tests and the scans he’d done, devising a treatment plan. It would take time, but Jade would recover. Dr. Brynn thought of the other friend, the one he couldn’t help, who rested in the ship’s hold…
It’s been almost a year since I talked about Medical Gear for FFG’s Star Wars RPGs. I included the two kits from the Force & Destiny Beta Book. When the Core book was released, a few changes had been made to them. And the recently-released Keeping the Peace Guardian sourcebook added a couple more items. So it is high time to check out the latest tools of the trade for Medics, Healers, Protectors and Doctors.
What changed with the F&D Core gear? First, the Healing Kit got renamed Emergency Medpac, which makes sense as it worked, and still does, the exact same way mechanically as the Emergency Medpac presented in the previous two core books. The only difference besides name was that the beta version text gave the item a lower-tech feel. Now in the core book, both name and text are the same as in EotE and AoR.
The Physician’s Kit, however, is unchanged from the beta. Its flavor text still calls to mind practical and pragmatic Outer Rim doctors and medtechs “making do” by adding local (or at least older) remedies to their higher tech–and possibly harder to find or replace–treatments and drugs. Players and GMs need to remember that the Physician’s Kit and Medpac use slightly different mechanics. The group I play in has run into this source of confusion. Both count as the “right tools” for Medicine checks and add a Boost die to the pool. The Kit, however, doesn’t provide a free Stimpack per scene, instead adding +1 Advantage to the user’s Medicine checks, which increases the chance of healing some Strain.
The more useful of the two Keeping the Peace items, in my opinion, is the Blood Scanner. Besides accurately identifying poisons, a successful Easy Medicine check adds two Advantage to the next Medicine result treating the same character. Again, it increases the likelihood of healing Strain–or some other effect approved by the GM. The device can be used for any type of Medicine check.
While I don’t find the Med-Aid Patch quite as useful as the Blood Scanner, that doesn’t mean it isn’t useful. An additional Success and Advantage is always good. However, it is more limited than the Stimpack in some ways. It does require a Medicine check and won’t heal as much damage as a Stimpack for most users. The exception would be when used by a character with several ranks in Medicine, who could easily roll enough net Successes to equal or exceed Stimpack healing, especially if the patient had already had Stimpacks that day.
Speaking of Stimpacks, our group has found that even with a trained doctor or paramedic in the party, we still make a lot of use of Stimpacks in our SW games. A common tactic is to administer a Stimpack before a Medicine check by a trained PC, since it will often heal enough Wounds to reduce the Difficulty of the check, even if the patient took a number of Wounds. This is really important in our F&D campaign, as the two PCs best at Medicine have Int 3/Med 1 and Int 2/Med 2, so -1 Difficulty really does make a difference. Of course, this won’t work on Critical Injuries, since the Difficulty is set by the Crit Table roll.
F&D and Keeping the Peace offer several new options for healing up PCs in all three lines, assuming your GM, like many, is open to gear from all lines. I like that the Blood Scanner, Physician’s Kit and even the Med-Aid Patch all up the chances of healing Strain. Ways of quickly recovering Strain, especially mid-combat, are relatively rare in FFG SW. Plus, F&D PCs, especially, can go through Strain fairly quickly, with Talents and Force Powers that cost Strain to use. So be even better prepared on you next adventure in the Galaxy Far, Far Away, by investing a few credits in some new medical gear.
Linda Whitson
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