Source Player Core pg. 216
Laser fire screams past your head. Your squadmate drops behind cover, clutching a wound that's bleeding through their armor. They're conscious, functional—but not for long. You've got one action before the enemy advances. No time for careful work. Just enough time to slam a medical injector through their armor and hope the stims keep them fighting.
This is Battle Medicine in Starfall Galaxy.
It's emergency intervention under the worst possible conditions. It's applying regenerative patches while explosions rock your position. It's injecting combat stims that'll hurt like hell but buy six more seconds of operational capacity. It's the difference between a crew member who can still shoot back and one who bleeds out waiting for the firefight to end.
Battle Medicine is the level 1 skill feat that allows trained Medicine practitioners to perform emergency healing as a single action during combat. Unlike Treat Wounds (which takes 10 minutes) or Administer First Aid (which only stabilizes dying creatures), Battle Medicine restores Hit Points immediately while under fire—making it the cornerstone of combat support builds.
In Starfall Galaxy, where firefights erupt without warning and magical healing is scarce or unreliable, Battle Medicine represents the split-second field medicine that keeps crews operational through sustained engagements. It's not careful treatment—it's combat triage performed while dodging incoming fire.
Combat medic using Battle Medicine mid-firefight in Starfall Galaxy
Who Uses Battle Medicine in Starfall?
Combat medicine is practiced by warriors who understand that firepower alone doesn't win battles:
Military Combat Medics: Soldiers specifically trained in battlefield medicine and trauma response
Mercenary Medics: Hired guns who patch up teams between skirmishes
Security Specialists: Corporate enforcers who keep VIP clients alive during hostile encounters
Exploration Teams: Scientists and surveyors who've learned emergency medicine through necessity
Pirate Crews: Raiders who rely on self-sufficiency when guild medical facilities aren't an option
Arena Fighters: Gladiators who've mastered self-treatment between rounds
Battle Medicine Feat 1
Prerequisites trained in Medicine
Requirements You’re wearing or holding a medkit.
You can patch up wounds, even in combat. Attempt a Medicine check with the same DC as for Treat Wounds and restore the corresponding amount of HP; this doesn't remove the wounded condition. As with Treat Wounds, you can attempt checks against higher DCs if you have the minimum proficiency rank. The target is then immune to your Battle Medicine for 1 day. This does not make them immune to Treat Wounds or count as Treat Wounds.
Non-Combat Applications and Narrative Uses
Despite its combat focus, Battle Medicine creates interesting narrative opportunities:
Time-Pressure Scenarios:
Treat injuries during active chases or pursuits
Emergency medicine while environmental hazards continue (fires, depressurization, Rift anomalies)
Stabilize casualties during ongoing disasters
Training and Certification:
Guild combat medic programs test Battle Medicine under simulated fire
Arena medics perform public demonstrations between fights
Street doc competitions judge speed and accuracy under pressure
Equipment Reliability:
Critical failures with Battle Medicine (dealing damage instead of healing) indicate equipment malfunction or user error
Black market medical supplies that work... most of the time
Depleted field kits forcing difficult resource decisions
Cultural Attitudes:
Combat medics are valued crew members—ships compete to recruit skilled practitioners
Self-treatment (using Battle Medicine on yourself) signals toughness or desperation
Refusing treatment can be pride, stubbornness, or strategic (saving limited uses for others)
Societal Impact in Starfall Galaxy
Military Doctrine: Commission military forces require all soldiers to qualify in basic Battle Medicine. Elite units have dedicated combat medics with Master proficiency. This training doctrine has spread to mercenary companies, security firms, and exploration teams.
Economic Value: Combat medics command premium wages. Ships advertising "medic on crew" attract better recruits. Mercenary medics charge hazard rates. The ability to keep a team operational through sustained engagements directly translates to mission success and survival.
Self-Reliance Culture: In environments where help won't arrive in time, Battle Medicine represents self-sufficiency. Frontier settlers, pirate crews, and independent traders prioritize medical training. Crew members who can't perform basic combat medicine are a liability.
Guild Gatekeeping: While Battle Medicine doesn't require certification (just training), professional combat medics pursue guild credentials for legitimacy and higher pay. Guild-certified medics have access to better equipment, legal protections, and reputation networks.
Arena Spectacle: Public battles feature medics treating fighters between rounds. Crowd-pleasing medics become celebrities. Some arena leagues ban certain medical technologies to maintain "fairness"—creating underground markets for illegal combat stims.
Adventure Hooks
The Medic Duel: Two rival mercenary companies clash over salvage rights. Each side has a skilled combat medic keeping their team operational. The firefight becomes a war of attrition—whichever medic runs out of supplies or makes a critical error first loses. PCs can be the medics, the fighters relying on them, or neutral parties caught in the crossfire.
The Contaminated Supplies: A batch of black market medical supplies is contaminated—Battle Medicine checks automatically critically fail. But the contamination isn't discovered until mid-combat. PCs must survive without reliable healing, identify the source, and stop the distribution before more crews die.
The Legendary Medic: An NPC combat medic has never lost a patient—legendary proficiency, perfect execution, miraculous saves. But investigation reveals they're using illegal Chronologist temporal reversal technology that prevents wounds before they happen. The guild wants them arrested. Their crew wants them protected. What do the PCs choose?.
The Arena Contract: A high-stakes arena tournament offers a fortune to the winning team—but requires a certified combat medic on roster. The PCs have the fighters but no medic. They can hire an NPC (expensive, potentially unreliable), train someone fast (risky), or forge certification (illegal). But the tournament has deadly stakes, and medical failure means permanent death.
The Wounded Crisis: After a brutal engagement, multiple crew members have wounded 3—one more downing means death. Battle Medicine can keep them fighting, but only Treat Wounds removes wounded. The crew must defend their position for 10 minutes per wounded crew member while enemies regroup. Do they fight with fragile allies, retreat and risk pursuit, or make desperate stands to buy treatment time?
One Action, One Chance
Battle Medicine represents the brutal calculus of combat support: you have one action, limited supplies, and no guarantee of success. A critical success keeps your ally fighting. A failure wastes precious time. A critical failure makes things worse.
Whether you're a military combat medic with guild certification and cutting-edge equipment, a mercenary sawbones improvising with black market stims, or an explorer who learned emergency medicine through necessity, you understand the fundamental truth:
In combat, healing isn't about careful diagnosis and sustained treatment. It's about buying six more seconds of operational capacity. It's about keeping allies functional long enough to win the firefight. It's about accepting that you can't save everyone—but trying anyway.
The wound may reopen. The stims may cause long-term damage. But right now, in this moment, they're alive and fighting.
And sometimes, that's enough.
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