Exotic Ability for C&C

[Stormgrad]

Your Right a medic and a doctor do both just triage in battlefield conditions, but a medic has a rather limited degree of training in comparison to a Doctor. If you have a heart attack fine the guy who has attended a first aid class six years ago can save your life, I am left however in no doubt as to how much more effective a trained doctor might be in such a situation. Your comment about experience, well surely that comes down to the characters background a Former Officeo medicae Surgeon turned Inquisitorial Interegator Might have racked up just as much experience as Corporal No name from the 101st cadian medical Battalion in treating these types of wounds. When Experience no longer becomes a factor (which it isnt because we are discussing an ability its assumed that the character with the ability has the story background to justify it otherwise it moves away from how can this be represented in game to is it even appropriate for such and such to have this ability) Now assuming the corporal no name and the interegator have the same experience when treating injuries of this type, the interegators overall medical knowledge and experience outstrips corporal no names and would make him the better quality healer

I Beg to differ, an Inquisitor can be many things and has many abilities, my case in point is the Officio Medicae turned Interegator in this instance you have a educated man someone able to use intelect to solve mysteries (certainly to puzzle together a potential illlness and formulate a treatment plan) His Intelect and puzzle solving led him into a mystery and as he continued to explore he became wrapped up in the work of a local inquisitor, before long the man was that inquisitors Interegator So not only is he now a Surgeon his also an Investigator, the Investigation leads right back to the planetary Governor, but it could potentially be bigger this is something they need to handle carefully the interegator sneaks into the governors quaters Drugs and Kidnaps him now not only is he a surgeon but he is an investigator, spy and kidnapper, i could go on about how now the inquisitor orders the interegator to adminsiter a multitude of truth serums or drugs that burn violently through his system untill he cracks revealing all in hope of a antidote but i feel my point is already been made, Characters can be multi faceted inquisitor is not a game about 1 dimensional characters why cant the the sick officio medicae surgeon have a deep interest in torture  maybe he practices his secret art in the mutant ghettos if you can justify it via background your characters can be whatever you want them to be a torturer is a torturer is a transexual ballet dancer if thats what you want and u can justify it to others and yourself

[InquisitorHeidfeld]

In terms of Triage (and therefore in terms suited to most games' timeframes) there will be very little difference between an experienced field medic and a qualified physic with experience in battlefield triage, both will assess the injury they're faced with, categorise it as synskin, field dressing & combatant, field dressing & non-combatant or critical (or a similar scale) and treat it accordingly.

The cases where the physic will be able to do more than the medic will be where surgery or longt term care is required, where the object of the exercise is no longer to get the casualty immediately back to combat readiness or stable enough to get clear and that happens off the table.

A trained physic as a character is all well and good and if he's treating casualties between games then it's reasonable to assume that they will recover more rapidly and more fully... but it's not something which requires differenciation in rules on the tabletop. The differenciation is between the theorist (the brilliant surgeon who's never seen a warzone and doesn't have the Medic ability) and the experienced or practically trained (the Corpsman, Medic, trained physic, ganger with a bit of nouse...etc who does).

[MarcoSkoll]

His Intellect and puzzle solving led him into a mystery and as he continued to explore he became wrapped up in the work of a local inquisitor, before long the man was that Inquisitor's Interrogator

While I agree that characters can be (and often should be, as Inquisitors do look for versatile individuals) multifaceted, this is not the best example.

A surgeon becoming a "field" Interrogator, while possible, is a fairly unlikely sequence of events. His ability to solve a medical mystery is unlikely to translate well into that style of Inquisitorial investigation. His reasoning skills are based on former experience and learning that are almost irrelevant to the situation, and would lag behind the other candidates with fields of expertise that applied more practically.

Maybe one could rise to heights as a "desk" Inquisitor in the Ordos Xenos, based on learning ways to combat various Xenos races with chemical or biological agents, but I can't easily see a surgeon translating into a sneaky infiltrator.

Also, I have to agree with Heidfeld. Medic vs. Physician is not going to make a big difference on the table.

Take the 7th July bombings, specifically the bus in Tavistock Square. Right outside the headquarters of the BMA, and what did they do? Pretty much exactly what paramedics would have done in the same circumstances - try to stabilise the victims until they can be transported to proper care.

Also, while a surgeon may have greater medical knowledge, they're seldom found closer to a battlefield than a field hospital, so they probably wouldn't have racked up as much practical experience.
Actually, on that note, you'd be unlikely to take a surgeon on field work (there's not a whole amount they could do that a medic couldn't, given that they won't have their tools or environment - and a Imperial Guard medic is both more expendable and more likely to not get expended...). Seems like surgeons would be background members of a warband for the most part.

So - plausible, but not exactly probable.