When you’ve taken damage, there are a number of ways you can recover. During combat, Stimpaks and first aid are the only ways to heal, but outside of combat you have several options.

Healing Actions in Combat

During a combat encounter, you can use the following methods to restore health and treat injuries.

• Take Chem: A number of chems, most commonly stimpaks, can be used in a hurry in combat to restore health points. Taking the minor action allows you to administer the chem to yourself, or to a willing creature within your reach.
• First Aid: You try to quickly patch the wounds of yourself or an ally. Attempt an INT + Medicine test, with a difficulty equal to the number of injuries the patient has, increasing the difficulty by +1 if you are trying to perform first aid on yourself. If you succeed, you can do one of the following:
  • Stabilize a dying patient
  • Heal Health Points equal to your Medicine rating
  • Treat one injury the patient is suffering from

Stabilizing the Dying

Using the First Aid action, you can attempt to stabilize a dying character. This requires an INT + Medicine test with a difficulty equal to the number of injuries the patient has. Passing the test restores the character to 1 HP and they are no longer dying. Their player no longer has to attempt END + Survival tests to avoid death. The character remains unconscious and unable to take actions.

If radiation damage has reduced their maximum health points to 0, they cannot be stabilized until their maximum health points are above 0, by healing the radiation damage.

If you stabilize the patient, you can spend AP to heal additional health points. You can heal 1 HP for every AP spent. You may also spend 1 AP after stabilizing a character to wake them from unconsciousness, allowing them to continue to act.

Regaining Health

You can use the First Aid action to heal a character’s health. Passing an INT + Medicine test will heal a number of HP equal to your rank in the Medicine skill, and an additional 1 HP for every AP you spend. You can only heal the HP of a stable character.

Treating an Injury

You can attempt an INT + Medicine test to treat an injury sustained from a critical hit. Passing the test allows a patient to ignore the penalties of their injury. An injury treated using First Aid is not fully healed—it’s merely been patched up so that it no longer imposes a penalty.

Whenever a character suffers any damage to a location which has a treated injury, roll 1 DC . If you roll an effect, the damage has re-opened that wound and the character is injured again. Completely recovering from an injury takes time, outside combat.

Using Stimpaks

Stimpaks are incredibly useful pieces of medical technology. You can use a stimpak or similar forms of medication in one of two ways.

• With the Take Chem minor action, you inject the stimpak and receive an instant result. Your character (or a willing patient) immediately recovers 4 HP or treats one injury. If the person injected was dying, then they stabilize immediately.
• With the First Aid major action, you may administer a stimpak as part of the action. The patient regains 4 HP immediately in addition to any other effects, and any AP spent to heal additional health points heal twice as much: 2 HP per AP spent, rather than 1.

Robots cannot be healed by Stimpaks, but you can use robot repair kits for the same benefits outlined here.

Healing Robots

Robots and other machines cannot recover from injuries naturally, and they require maintenance to restore damage.

Attempting the First Aid action on a robot, a suit of power armor, or other large machine (like a vehicle) requires an INT + Repair test, with a difficulty of 2. This increases by +1 for each injury the machine has suffered. Passing the test restores health points equal to your Repair rating, treats an injury, or stabilizes a dying machine. Machines cannot use chems, though a repair kit functions for machines as Stimpaks do for living characters.

Machines cannot heal through eating, drinking, rest, or medical attention. Outside of combat, an hour’s work on a damaged machine restores HP equal to twice the repairer’s Repair skill rating.

Long-term Recovery

Outside of combat, there are three ways a character can heal: rest, food & drink, and medical attention.

Rest

Rest is the easiest way to recover from damage, though it is slow. If you can find somewhere to sleep, for at least six hours, you regain all lost HP.If you’re able to get eight hours of sleep somewhere safe and comfortable—your own bed in a settlement you belong to, for example—then you are considered Well Rested as well, and your maximum HP is increased by +2 until you next sleep.

When you sleep, if you have any injuries (treated or otherwise), make an END + Survival test with a difficulty of 1. The complication range on this test increases by +1 for each injury that has not been treated. If you succeed, you may recover from one of those injuries, plus an additional injury for every 2 AP spent.

The difficulty of this test varies based on how active you were during the preceding day:

Injury Recovery Difficulty

You may only sleep once in any 24-hour period. Going without sleep for long periods can also be harmful (see Survival).

Food & Drink

While proper nutrition isn’t common in the wasteland, a decent snack, a hearty meal, or a refreshing beverage is still a vital part of life, and a valuable way to recover health.

Food and drink restores the HP listed in their description. Food and drink cannot be consumed during combat. Some forms of food and drink are irradiated, especially if consumed raw: roll 1 DC  when consuming irradiated food or drink, and if you roll an Effect, you suffer 1 Radiation damage, ignoring any DR from equipment or armour.

Medical Attention

Characters may require long-term medical care if they’ve been injured, poisoned, or are suffering from a disease. A single character can provide medical attention for a number of patients equal to their Medicine rating.

For injuries, each day of rest and medical attention a patient receives allows you to assist their END + Survival test at the end of the day to heal their injuries, using your own INT + Medicine target number.

For poisons and diseases, you may assist the patient’s END + Survival tests to help them recover. If the patient spent the entire day resting, they reduce the difficulty of this test by 1 allowing them to recover more quickly.

Recovering from Rads

Because radiation damage reduces maximum health points, it doesn’t heal in the same way that most damage does—the effects of radiation damage don’t heal naturally at all.

Radiation damage can only be removed by administering RadAway, or other chems or consumables that remove radiation damage. When you heal HP and remove radiation damage at the same time, remove the radiation damage first, and then resolve the HP recovery.