Medicae

Advanced
Intelligence
The Medicae skill is used to treat and repair injuries by closing wounds and restoring the balance of the body’s humors. There are two general methods for using Medicae: First Aid and Extended Care. You can use the former to attend fallen or injured comrades, while the latter serves to hasten the removal of damage.
Special: The Master Churgeon talent expands your options with the Medicae skill

First Aid

Using the Medicae skill to perform First Aid offers a quick fix for injured or dying characters. A successful Medicae Test removes Damage equal to your Intelligence Bonus to Lightly Wounded characters, 1 Damage from Heavily Wounded characters and 1 point of Critical Damage from Critically Wounded characters. On a failure, the patient is not adversely affected and simply removes Damage at the natural healing rate. However, a failure by three or more degrees indicates that Lightly or Heavily Wounded take a point of Damage, whilst a character on 0 Wounds must make a Toughness Test or die.
First Aid may only be applied to each Wound once and is a Full Action by you and your patient. A character can benefit from First Aid just once per combat encounter, even when attended by multiple healers.

Extended Care

Extended Care speeds the healing process. You can attend a number of patients equal to your Intelligence Bonus. Each patient above this number imposes a cumulative –10 penalty to your Medicae Tests to provide extended care. For Lightly Wounded patients make one Test at the end of each day. For Heavily or Critically Wounded patients, Test once at the end of each week. On a success, your patient removes twice the normal Damage (removing Critical Damage first then normal Damage), plus 1 Damage for each degree of success. On a failure, your patients are not adversely affected, removing Damage at the normal rates. A failure by three or more degrees indicates that all Lightly Wounded or Heavily Wounded characters take 1 Damage—use Sudden Death to resolve Critical Damage. Failing by five or more degrees indicates that all patients take 1d10 Damage—again, use Sudden Death to resolve Critical Damage.

Diagnose

You can diagnose what’s wrong with a patient by succeeding on a Medicae Test. The GM rolls for you in secret. A success reveals the most basic trouble, with each degree of success revealing an additional useful fact. A failure reveals nothing, while a failure by three or more degrees results in a misdiagnosis with often spectacularly awful results if the physician is allowed to treat the patient. Examples include poisoning, lopping off the incorrect limb, replacing organs unnecessarily and so on.

Other Uses

A person trained in Medicae can also attend to other injuries beyond Damage.
Blood Loss: A Difficult (–10) Medicae Test halts Blood Loss. If the subject is still fighting or has moved while suffering from Blood Loss, the Test is Very Hard (–30) instead.
Broken Limbs: A Difficult (–10) Medicae Test is required to safely remove a necrotised limb (which results from a failed Toughness Test made to resist limb loss from a broken limb). A failed Test deals 1d10 points of Damage to the limb location, ignoring Armour. Note that a failed Test also results in Blood Loss.

Pharmacy

When administering a drug or treating a poison with Chem-Use, you may first make a Difficult (–10) Medicae Test to bring to bear your Medicae knowledge. On a success, you gain a +5 bonus to the Chem-Use Test. On a failure by three or more degrees you take a –5 penalty instead.

Install Implants and Bionic Components

The Medicae skill also allows you the ability to install replacement limbs and organs. To do so, you must have the implant or bionic device handy. The Test Difficulty depends on the unit, its quality and the facilities available. The process of implantation always takes 2d10 days minus one day per point of the patient’s Toughness Bonus (to a minimum of one day). The following table describes the Test Difficulties for this procedure. All Difficulties are cumulative. If you have also have the Tech-Use skill, you gain a +10 bonus on Medicae Tests to install implants and bionic components.

Implants & Bionic Components
Unit	Difficulty
Bionic Arm	Challenging (+0)
Bionic Locomotion	Difficult (–10)
Bionic Respiratory System	Hard (–20)
Chem Gland	Difficult (–10)
Concealed Weapon Bionic	Challenging (+0)
Hermetic Infusion	Very Hard (–30)
Implant Systems
Augur Array	Challenging (+0)
Ballistic Mechadendrite	Difficult (–10)
Cortex Implant	Hard (–20)
Cybernetic Senses	Difficult (–10)
Manipulator Mechadendrite	Challenging (+0)
Medicae Mechadendrite	Difficult (–10)
Mind Impulse Unit	Challenging (+0)
Optical Mechadendrite	Challenging (+0)
Utility Mechadendrite	Challenging (+0)
Injector Rig	Ordinary (+10)
Mining Helot Augmetics	Routine (+20)
Rite of Setesh	Very Hard (–30)
Vehicle Interface Circuitry	Ordinary (+10)
Quality	Difficulty
Poor	Difficult (–10)
Common	Challenging (+0)
Good	Ordinary (+10)
Facility	Difficulty
Dreadful (in the field)	Hard (–20)
Poor (field medicae tent, Rogue Trader)	Difficult (–10)
Common (hospital)	Challenging (+0)
Good (quality hospital)	Ordinary (+10)
Excellent (Inquisitor’s personal hospital)	Routine (+20)

Failed Tests

A failed Medicae Test to install an implant or bionic unit can have nasty consequences. A simple failure reduces the quality of the unit by one-step. If the unit was poor to begin with, the unit doesn’t work at all and could, in the case of a vital system, kill the patient. A failure by three or more degrees means that the limb breaks and the procedure seriously injures the patient, dealing 2d10 points of Rending Damage to the affected location (ignoring Armour Points). A failure by five or more degrees results in the death of the patient, the ruin of the device and 1d10 Insanity Points to all who witness the appalling mishap.

Below are alternative (and more complex) rules for First aid and Extended Care

First Aid

Generally, a Medicae Test to provide First Aid is Challenging (+0), but the severity as well as the type of injury can also have an effect. As an optional rule, you can use the following Difficulties for performing First Aid on injured characters. This method requires players to keep track of the type of Damage they’ve taken. As well, a Medicae Test is made to repair a specific set of injuries, each Test attending to a particular type of injuries. The Injury Level applies to total Damage taken, so even if the target only took 1 point of Energy Damage and 6 points of Explosive Damage, that same target would still count as Heavily Injured.

Difficulty by Type
Injury Level	Energy	Explosive	Impact	Rending
Light	Challenging (+0)	Difficult (–10)	Ordinary (+10)	Challenging (+0)
Heavy	Difficult (–10)	Hard (–20)	Challenging (+0)	Difficult (–10)
Critical	Difficult (–10)	Very Hard (–30)	Difficult (–10)	Hard (–20)

Limits on First Aid: If you’re not using the optional rules described here, a character can benefit from First Aid just once per combat encounter, even when attended by multiple healers. If you’re using the optional rules, a character can receive First Aid for each type of Damage taken. So a character who has taken only Explosive Damage can only receive First Aid once, while a character who has taken Energy and Explosive Damage could received two uses of First Aid, one for each set of injuries.

Extended Care

Extended care is covered in detail in above. However, if you are using the optional rules described under First Aid, the type of injury can affect the Medicae Test to treat patients. Use the predominant Damage type to determine the base Difficulty (e.g. the type of Damage that affects the target the most). In the case of two equal Damage types, use the worst modifier. Next, for each Damage type that afflicts the target beyond the first, reduce the Difficulty by one-step. This determines the base Difficulty of the Test. Unlike the system described in Dark Heresy, you must Test separately for each patient.

Type	Difficulty
Energy	Challenging (+0)
Explosive	Difficult (–10)
Impact	Challenging (+0)
Rending	Difficult (–10)