Note: I'm talking about SR 3 here, though insights from SR 1-2 are appreciated.

For some reason, I haven't seen much use of biotech, as people seem to prefer simply using healing spells. Given the way a decent biotech skill can reduce a wound though, it would seem to be very useful for decreasing the drain a healing spell would cause, if nothing else. The big thing I just noticed though is that first aid can be used to fix physical drain. That means that, say, someone summoning a spirit with force over their magic can, if they resist the drain to light, 5 rounds later, have the drain removed relatively easily. Or, if the drain is still moderate, there is a good chance of reducing it to light. That could let a shaman summon a pretty massive hearth spirit or whatever the domain is in the early stages of a run, before the team has been detected, and still be operational.

Mostly because of this use, I've got a question. Can a character use first aid on themselves? The rules don't seem to forbid it (except in obvious cases like deadly wounds), but it seems sort of funny, and I might be missing something that would make it illegal. Does anyone have an opinion, or a clarification from the SR 3 rulebooks?

Biotech is great, it adds some tactical spice where seeking a short interlude in combat for first aid can substantially affect the outcome by removing damage and TN mods, especially coupled with some edges and cyber/bio/nanoware. The availability of healing magic depends whether your mage thinks they're a magic user or a cleric.

I seem to recall this issue, of casting spells at excessive force because physical drain is potentially faster to recover, has cropped up on DS before though I've never had problems with it.

As for healing thyself, SR3 suggests it's not possible while SR2 gave no insight.
I'd allow a character to treat themself though with perhaps +1 or 2 to TN for the obvious difficulties that may arise with access etc. Injury modifiers would also apply.

Yeah, biotech is great. But we usually use a mage too.

And also, remember that, even if you are letting the character treat himself (with extra mods for being hard to do) they will also need to have their damage modifiers on there as well. So, if your mage is trying to fix up some S damage on herself, she'll have +4 target numbers. So, eventually (M physical, S stun from drain) this can get pretty rough to do without the extras as you'd be at +5 from damage alone. So, in short, that's probably part of the reason (along with that it's just pretty hard to do) that you shouldn't try to fix yourself up (unless you don't have another choice).

I'm pretty used to mages taking the heal spell at least at force 3, except in the rare cases where it is impossible or makes no sense for the character. Both IC and OOC, the heal/treat spells have so many uses that this makes sense. Healing magic is something most people would have had easier access too than most other kinds, and plenty of personal motivation to learn, whether for combat or non-combat use. I suppose I can imagine someone coming from the game which shall not be mentioned and not wanting to be treated like a cleric though.

I read the same rules you did, and I noticed both portions you bolded, and neither one really outright says you can't use first aid on yourself. Though it is clear that the rules sort of assumed you'd be patching someone else up, I'm not seeing a problem with letting people patch themselves up. Still, the TN from being wounded thing could be a problem, especially if you've already got the bad conditions and patient is awakened modifiers. Part of the problem is that the TNs can start pretty high already. Even someone unwounded, treating a moderate wound on someone with a body as high as 6, in the usual shadowrunning conditions, is looking at a tn of 6, or 8 if the patient is awakened. Add 2 for being injured yourself, and you're already looking at tn 10. Adding another 1 or 2 to this for a hypothetical 'first aid on self' penalty seems like overkill, even if performing first aid on one's self can be difficult.

I've got a second question. If someone takes three different light wounds, how does first aid work? Is that one moderate wound, or three different rolls to remove each light wound, for one box of healing each? I'm pretty sure the heal spell treats that like a Moderate wound, but first aid might treat it as 3 light ones.

In shadowrun, wounds are magnetic. That is to say... You take a light wound. You get attacked again and the knife happens to land in the same place. the next round, it happens AGAIN. Now you have an M wound
(obviously that 's not true)

But seriously, yes, taking L damage three times is for all intents and purposes the same as taking M damage once.

A good example of this is taking M damage from a burst fire pistol. You have three bullet holes in you, so, that is the same thing as having three (L damage) knife wounds in you. So yeah, damage counts as one entity.

Also, you can get spells for a song (especially if you're a shaman! ha... >_<), so why not have Treat at force 6?

That is the way I figured it worked. It even makes some sense if you consider the fact that wounds don't just damage particular parts of the body, they cause trauma or shock or whatever to the whole body.

However I'm thinking about houseruling it to make treating a bunch of knife wounds or something easier. Healing magic would still work the old way, but first aid would get a boost. Can anyone think of reasons that would go horribly wrong? Or, can anyone think of ways, houseruling or not, to get people to actually take the biotech skill?