In the rules it says that "first aid takes a complex action, and Takes a number of Combat Turns equal to the amount of damage the character is attempting to heal." So what happens if the healer has multiple Initiative Passes? Is it like driving, where as long as the healer spends one action healing she can say shoot at people during her other combat passes? Is the Healer reduced to only one combat pass, because healing takes up so much energy? Or am I reading this wrong, and a healer with three Initiative Passes heal all three Passes within a single combat round?

Along the same lines, the person being healed can still do stuff within reason, like shoot guns or jump in the matrix, right?

Thanks

I have played it that it takes up all of your actions (no matter how many Passes) for a number of Combat Turns equal to the DV. However, requiring just 1 Complex Action per Turn isn't a bad way to play it.

I'd just like to point out that if it takes 10 rounds to heal a guy who is almost unconscious and bleeding to death back to full health, that's about 30 seconds. By allowing multiple initiative passes to take more complex actions per turn and thereby reduce the time it takes to heal someone, you're dropping that down to 10 seconds (3 pass characters are rather common).

Stuffing pain pills down a guy's throat faster doesn't make them take effect any sooner, despite what Left 4 Dead will have you believe.

Don't the pain pills in L4D just act as "Ignore Modifiers" if you look at it deep down? The damage comes back when you use pills.

Now, the medkits must be rating 6.

True. Pills are Slap Patches in SR, but medical care takes time (not actions) to be effective.

Very true. Healing (via First Aid) is already a little to "video gamey" in SR.

You know, I just thought of a (possibly) good house rule for First Aid. Why not have First Aid not actually *heal* the damage, but allow the character to ignore the modifiers from the "healed" damage for a temporary amount of time? Not until the character actually does a "natural healing" check does the damage actually go away.

The way I read it is if you are trying to heal one box of damage it will take you one combat turn. Trying to heal two boxes, two combat turns and so on. I don't think I would stop in a firefight to heal less than 4 boxes damage so even with three initiative passes it will take me an entire Initiative phase and my first initiative pass in the next phase to get the job done. So no, you really can't do anything more in a turn. If you are trying to heal three boxes or more your passes are taken up.
If however your Street Sam gets a hang nail and needs first aid for one box of damage while corp sec is raining down lead on you position then I guess you could give him a kiss on his boo-boo and return fire.

As far as the wounded goes I would allow some action but not too much. VR/AR activity would be acceptable cause there is not much movement but firing a gun in any mode with recoil would mess with the administering of the first aid not to mention all the negative modifiers involved from the crappy situation and unsanitary conditions. The last thing you need is a glitch on a first aid roll on a severley wounded player during a firefight.

try max payne 1&2...

in both mr payne would be so drugged up on pain killers that even a addict would be scared into rehab...

If someone actually gets 12 successes that is. With tech of 2070 and that much skill or luck, why not? If not the rest has to heal in the next few days.

now, if there was rules for ripping first aid patching up with to much activity and new wounds, it may not be so bad?

still, there is reaal life work being done on coagulant wound sealing foam and similar. with stuff like that, field patches should be no problem. then add some local pain kill injections, maybe nano based, and your good to go...

True, if he gets 12 successes (Edge?).
However, it works as an extreme example of what allowing First Aid to be administered in passes rather than rounds: the speed of healing is insanely fast. Even with the work going into coagulant wound sealing foam, healing time should remain in the 10+ seconds range of things (you're not going to be healing 1 box in combat, ever, and if you allowed 1 box to be 1 complex action and done people would be doing it all the time).

i just recalled a story from a 2ed game.

they where raiding some place, and each time they picked something in the area of a medium wound, they would pop outside for a quick patchup from the team medic...