The Medic: Difference between revisions

[[File:medic.png|link=Team Fortress 2|frame|[http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/9/21/ This motherfucker right here.] [[Shoot the Medic First|Shoot him first.]]]]

 

 

Funny thing about adventure: People tend to get hurt. Especially the heroes. And injuries are terribly inconvenient for questing, resulting in time lost recuperating (or making an out-of-the-way trip to the nearest [[Trauma Inn]]) at best, and a [[Total Party Kill]] at worst. So, it's wonderfully convenient to have someone in the party who can make the hurting stop.

 

Also in videogames, when the ''enemy'' has one, [[Shoot the Medic First]]. The [[Combat Medic]] is a variant which can heal and support ''while'' beating down the enemies, and a medic who specializes in both healing ''and'' defense is often a [[Barrier Warrior]]. The [[Deadly Doctor]] has gone rogue and decided to use those same healing abilities to take people apart. Compare [[After-Action Patchup]].

 

* ''[[Slayers]]'': [[Guest Star Party Member]] Sylphiel, a shrine maiden, acts as this as well as a defensive tactitcian for the four protagonists. The third season, ''Slayers TRY,'' has Filia fill this position. When neither of them are around, Amelia usually does most of the healing, being a specialist in [[White Magic]].

* In ''[[Galaxy Angel (anime)|Galaxy Angel]]'', Vanilla H was the team healer and youngest member of the [[Amazon Brigade|all-female fighter-pilot group]], but she was one of [[The Smart Guy|the smarter members]] and an [[Emotionless Girl]]. She healed people and repaired fighter-craft with [[Nanomachines]]. Probably because everyone's older and she's so young, she's not a [[Team Mom]].

* In the ''[[Pokémon Special]]'' manga, Yellow is blessed by the Viridian Forest, meaning that she has the magical power to instantly heal Pokémon with a single touch. While this (and her other Viridian blessed powers) makes up for her sub-par battling skills, overusing it will cause her mental strain, forcing her to fall asleep.

* [[Inexplicably Identical Individuals|Nurse Joy]] from ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]''. And Brock {{spoiler|and his Chansey}}. Iris is showing signs of this too.

* In ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'', [[Cute Bruiser]] May Chang counts as this as Alkahestry can be used for healing.

* [[Shaman King]] has Faust VIII, who starts out with only really awesome but technically possible medical knowledge and a complete lack of squeamishness, but ends up being able to magically regrow limbs.

* Asia Argento of ''[[High School DxD]]''. She has pretty much zero fighting skill, but her healing powers are extremely handy to the group.

 

* Joshua "Josh" Foley, aka Elixir, from ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]]''. Elixir is quite possibly the most powerful mutant because he can manipulate DNA in order as his power and accelerate cell division. It manifests early on as healing powers, but he can just as easily kill you as he can heal you.

* Lifeline from the ''[[G.I. Joe]]'' [[Animated Show]] and comic books. Gets lots of attention because he will never intentionally hurt someone. But is a master of a martial art that will redirect energy. A charging enemy will find himself fifteen feet away, out of breath, wondering what the heck threw him. There was also, in the original comics and some alternate universes, Doc, who was noted for his calm under fire, described as coming to you in the middle of a firefight "like he was a making a house call".

* The Gronk in ''[[Strontium Dog]]'' comes from an entire species who are skilled medics, and is constantly healing Johnny and Wulf after their latest scrap.

 

 

* Wade from ''[[Saving Private Ryan]]'' is an Army medic and the second character in [[The Squad]] to die.

* Played with in ''[[When Trumpets Fade]]'' with Chamberlain, who seems very much the traditional WWII medic character, right up until the climax of the film, when he takes off his medic badges and assumes a combatant role to help destroy two German tanks. Of course, when he thinks Manning has been wounded, he reacts like a medic....

* Reynolds in ''[[Zulu]]''.

 

== [[LARP]] ==

 

 

 

* In [[J. R. R. Tolkien|JRR Tolkien]]'s stories there are lots of characters with healing abilities (some conventionally mundane, some a bit magical) of various races, some having it as their 'main job' while others do it just as it comes up. Most well known healer is probably Elrond.

** The most dedicated medic among the students that we've seen so far, however, may just be the blind devisor Jericho, who isn't actually on the team (though friends with some of them after a few harrowing encounters) and has to do it all by inventing the tools he needs himself because he has no actual innate healing powers.

* Subverted in the Sven Hassel [[WW 2]] novel ''OGPU Prison''. A medical orderly robs the wounded, demands a huge bribe for getting Sven onto a hospital train and brutally kicks a crawling amputee out of his path. On an earlier occasion another orderly is shown abandoning a truckful of wounded and making off with a submachine gun and a Red Cross bandolier on each arm (knowing that at least some Russian soldiers won't shoot at him). Though Sven's friends wish the orderly a well-deserved death, one cynically comments: "That kind lives through any war."

* Dorden and Curth in the [[Dan Abnett]]'s ''[[Gaunt's Ghosts]]'' novels. Dorden, being an [[Actual Pacifist]] fits the type even closer than Curth does; a delirious Soric thought it wrong for Dorden to take his gun, because he was not violent, but Curth was able to persuade him to give it to her.

** Also, Kolding in ''Blood Pact''. {{spoiler|Although he nearly revolts at having to treat a Blood Pact prisoner, Gaunt does get him to do it -- and we learn that he was present, fifteen years earlier, when Blood Pact broke into his father's hospital to [[Moral Event Horizon|slaughter the doctors]] and [[Kick Them When They Are Down|wounded]]. Kolding was the [[Sole Survivor]].}} In ''Salvation Reach'' he has joined the Ghosts, and fully wins a place by {{spoiler|saving Cant's life when even Dorden didn't think it could be done.}}

** All the more notable since Maturin is a physician, not a surgeon. (It was even more of an issue then as opposed to now, since surgeons did not attend medical school and the overwhelming majority of physicians considered surgery a common craft beneath their professional station. For Maturin to know even the first thing about surgery, let alone undertake and succeed at half a dozen different procedures just in the first novel, is unusual in the extreme.)

*** Heck, it is even more impressive that a physician would even consider a job in the navy. Physicians are usually drawn from the upper-class and would consider a a job at sea to be sacrilegious. At that time (c. 1800) there are only a dozen physicians compared to ''one thousand'' surgeons in the Royal Navy.

* This describes Polgara's job in the [[Belgariad]] pretty well. She uses conventinal medicine, knows almost every sickness in the whole world and has a small box full of drugs always around. Her huge knowledge is comprehendible, after all she is [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old|3000 years old]].

* An interesting take on the 'magical girl healer' idea is seen in the [[Vernor Vinge]] sci-fi novel ''[[Zones of Thought|A Fire Upon The Deep]]''. Johanna, a 12 year-old girl from a spacefaring society, is stranded on the medieval world of the dog-like Tines. Each Tine is a pack of up to half a dozen members linked into a [[Hive Mind]]. Because two Tines cannot make bodily contact without being confused by the other's thoughts, Johanna's ability to physically nurse them gives her healing powers on a psychological level. (An assassination attempt on her fails because all the injured she had tended leapt to her defense.)

* The [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] [[X Wing Series]] of novels had Ton Phanan, a rarity in commando squads: a fully-trained and licensed doctor and surgeon. He had none of the bedside manner, however, and was something of a [[Combat Medic]]/[[Deadly Doctor]]. He did adhere to the [[Squishy Wizard]] stereotype by getting himself injured in battle ({{spoiler|and eventually getting killed}}), though this was somewhat counteracted by his having to get cybernetic implants for more extensive injuries as he was "allergic to bacta".

* Kaita, her [[Les Yay|friend]] Evelinden (before she died), and the other Callisorian healers in the [[Shadowleague]] books.

* In Suzanne Collins's ''[[The Hunger Games]]'' and still more in ''Catching Fire'', Katniss's mother and Prim. (Unavailable in the arena, alas.)

 

 

 

* Simon Tam from ''[[Firefly]]'' is an accomplished trauma surgeon on the run, who parlays his medical knowledge into passage on the ship. Simon also fits the trope on being completely incompetent with guns, although he makes up for it with his proficiency with drugs and poisons, as Jayne found out when he tried to take over in "The Train Job" and later betrayed Simon and River in "War Stores". (In a later episode, Simon injects him with a paralytic.)

 

 

* A game actually ''called'' "Medic" (we played it in elementary school gym class). It's sort of a cross between dodgeball and reverse freeze tag—two teams lob Nerf balls at each other, and players who get hit have to stop playing and lie on the ground. Each team has one medic roaming the field, healing elimated players by touching them—but he can't heal himself, so the game ends when the medic falls.<ref>A variant has two medics to a team, which can lead to very drawn-out play.</ref> The best place to be is among the phalanx surrounding the medic, as you get instant heals.

 

* [[Mortasheen]] has several monsters that fit the archetyp, such as [http://www.bogleech.com/mortasheen/ticklestitch.htm Ticklestitch]; a creepy but ultimately benevolent surgeon creature and [http://www.bogleech.com/mortasheen/necroak.htm Necroak]; a frog creature that heals by feeding other creatures one of its many redundant organs.

** D&D's recently-released fourth edition seems to reverse this trend by making it easy for any player character to recover by just taking a five-minute break after combat and spending enough 'healing surges'. Even after running out of those, a good night's rest will restore a character to full hit points (and reset the healing surge count to maximum as well). Actual healing powers still come into play ''during'' combat encounters, though, and Leader classes are the best source.

** D20 Modern includes 0 (that's ''zero'') basic healing classes, and 1 (that's ''one'') advanced class with healing abilities. In addition, there are 0 (''zee-ro'') instant healing items available in the vanilla setting. This makes combat significantly more dangerous, and a dungeon crawl is much more about avoiding damage than speeding through.

*** Technically, in a low-level or no-supernatural setting, the Wise Hero could serve as the healer, given that the Heal skill is based on the Wisdom score. Of course, this would come strictly in the form of minor healing and preventing a near-death character from dying, but such a character is often played as the medic anyhow.

*** There is a Surgery feat that lets a character heal a significant amount of damage, but requires several ''hours'' to do so.

*** Making the class almost entirely useless, since despite the name, it is actually not all that good at healing, as clerics can access a large number of options that improve their healing, but the Healer, being from an obscure sourcebook, and thus largely unsupported with class options in other books, can benefit from only a pittance of these.

*** Furthermore, in D&D 3E, Attack bonus and Damage scale up numerically far faster than Armor Class (Defense), Hit Points (Health), or Cure spells, making Cure spells increasingly less useful as character level increases. Healing is not even listed as a viable combat role in most fan made game guides for this edition (the official guides do list it as one, but are widely considered to be full of [[Blantant Lies]], so it's not like that means anything), because as one such guide points out - killing the enemy before he can hit your ally again effectively "heals" her of all the damage she would have taken - which is, 99% of the time, more than your Cure spell could heal her for. Cost effective healing in D&D 3E consists of healing only small amounts at a time, but doing so in unlimited quantity, allowing characters to refill Hit Points during downtime between battles without using up limited resources like Spell Slots or Scrolls. There are many means of achieving this, but all are considered secondary functions, not primary roles.

* ''[[Shadowrun]]''. So your team's Medic got shot first, followed soon after by you? Sucks to be you. Hope you have an account with Medics-for-Hire, such as DocWagon. Conversely, you managed to drop their Medic. Nice work. Hear that siren in the distance? He had a DocWagon High Threat Response contract. They like to fly in with assault helicopters and extract their clients under cover from heavy weapons fire...better finish what you're doing, right quick.

* [[Gameplay and Story Segregation|In the backstory of]] ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]'': the only thing priests of Shallya (Goddess of Healing, Compassion and Birth) are good for in combat situations (well, except if servants of Nurgle, God of Pestilence, are involved). But oh boy they are good at it! In the game itself however, most models [[One-Hit-Point Wonder|are removed after a single wound]] so you don't get the chance to heal - but certain magic lores (the Lore of Life for normal people and the Lore of the Vampires for the undead) can restore lost wounds to bigger/more important models and/or add models back to the unit, simulating the casualties being either brought back to fighting fitness or literally reanimated from the ground.

 

 

* Sometimes played straight and subverted in ''[[Jagged Alliance]] 2''. While some of the hire-able mercenaries with a high medical skill stat had relatively weak weapons, or an average marksmanship skill stat, some had either a good weapon to back them up, good marksmanship, both, or a [[Game Breaker|high wisdom stat that makes marksmanship raise beyond that of dedicated sharpshooters in a in game hours of shooting crows]]. Nearly every medic also has a decent dexterity stat (as it is required to be a decent medic) that helps their accuracy slightly.

* Estelle in ''[[Tales of Vesperia]]'' is clearly The Medic of the party, both plotwise and gameplay-wise (although arguably she's the actually the least effective healer because of the balance issues of spells with cast times). In a subversion of the [[Squishy Wizard]] aspect, she's actually the character with the most defense and can choose to use a sword. Well, her melee attacks are pretty awkward like throwing toy hammers at people. Slightly subverted in that with the right skills she learns the Holy Rain spell which blasts everything on the screen in a manner more associated with ''[[Black Magician Girl]]'' Rita. Estelle's mystic arte is also the only one that heals plus like Mint she too has her own nurse outfit.

* ''[[Tales of the Abyss]]'' evades this trope by providing almost every character with a self heal, and two characters who are both very powerful healers while being very different. Tear has powerful offensive 'holy' style magic and AoE healing with some wicked knife artes, while Natalia has most of the 'buff' spells, powerful single target heals, and a wide range of bow skills.

** In the books, as well as being the medic, she's an accomplished biochemist, a genius, and a [[Mary Sue]]. Not everyone found this annoying.

** ''[[Resident Evil Outbreak]]'' has two medics—Cindy Lennox, who specializes in herb hoarding and usage; and George Hamilton, who can turn herbs of various combinations into pills. When ''File #2'' came out, their abilities were diverged further, with Cindy gaining an item to let her heal partners' bleeding and George being made into a [[Combat Medic]] thanks to his new [[Game Breaker|ampoule shooter]].

** Lucas of ''[[Mother 3]]'' is a straighter example. He's more focused on positive support and healing whereas Kumatora is more into negative support and offense.

*** Both Ness and Lucas also have the [[Combat Medic|most powerful physical attacks]] in their parties (not to mention powerful - though PP inefficient - multi-target psychic attacks).

* ''[[Star Wars Battlefront]]'' has the "Pilot" class. The CIS and Empire variants are ridiculously overpowered, with large supplies of health and ammo kits, the ability to build turrets, and frickin' grenade launchers.

** There are also Engineers for the non space battle maps. They can also drop health/ammo kits, and repair turrets or other broken machines, and have an obscenely powerful shotgun.

** ''[[World in Conflict]]'' however has no dedicated medic unit. Instead, one of the squad members in the basic Infantry unit is a medic, able to heal his teammates and infantry of other squads.

** ''[[Age of Mythology]]'' makes healing a matter of the gods. Only the Egyptians get healing by default from their priests and pharaoh, the other factions rely on myth units, god powers or god-related upgrades for healing. Depending on what minor gods you choose you might not get any means of healing your units at all.

** Medics appear in [[Command & Conquer]], but oddly for only one side. The Allies in ''[[Red Alert]]'' get one, while the Soviets do not; GDI in ''Tiberian Sun'' get one, Nod does not.

** ''[[Warcraft III]]'' has plenty.

* The playerbase of ''[[City of Heroes]]'' is divided on this issue. New players who import mindsets from other games assume that the Empathy powerset, which focuses on restoring HP, is an absolute must for team success, and they insist that Defenders—who can choose it as a primary powerset—should always have it. Those more familiar with the game understand that the Defender Archetype is not your typical Healer Class. Its purpose is loosely, "keep allies from dying," and all its myriad possible abilities work toward this in some fashion. Yes, this includes making enemies dea- er, [[Non-Lethal KO|"arrested"]] if need be, but more often involves [[Status Buff]]s and [[Standard Status Effects|debuffs]]. These proactive options are generally more effective than Empathy, so the more experienced players tend to look down on the ignorant Empathy-demanders.

** As Empathy is exclusive to the hero side of the game, villain players are very used to playing without a dedicated healer on their teams and look even more down on hero players who will not do anything without an Empathy healer standing by.

** It should be noted that the Controller Archetype on the hero side can choose Empathy as a secondary powerset, and thus serve as the "literal" Medic of a team despite being [[An Adventurer Is You|the "Mezzer" class]]. But furthermore, ''anyone''—including villains—can pick the small Medicine pool of abilities as a tertiary set of powers.

** The real issue is when players who are used to serving as this trope in other MMOs come here and think that turning 'Healing Aura' on automatic and following the tank- that's it- is contributing to a team. Also that, especially in higher levels, healing ''very'' much pales in comparison to [[Status Buff]]s: stacked buffs [[Game Breaker|make characters godlike]]. ''Working as intended''. We don't need your puny heals here.

*** Or more generally, the issue is that avoiding the need for a "balanced party" seems to have been an early design goal. Party competence isn't so much about organizing a group of people to fill preassigned roles as being able to figure out what the people with you are going to be doing and find a way to support them in it. This can make pickup groups either infuriating or interesting. Or both.

* Carlie from ''[[Seiken Densetsu 3]]'' is the only character to possess healing magic for every single class of hers, and remains by far the best at it throughout the entire game. Her dark-aligned classes can also do decent damage with summons, while her light-aligned classes focus more on party buffs. Strangely enough, the only two other characters to learn healing magic, Duran and Kevin, are otherwise devoted physical powerhouses.

* In ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' games, the White Mage class is normally the healer, although there are other variations. In ''[[Final Fantasy XI]]'', there are also Scholars, Dancers, [[Magic Knight|Red Mages and Blue Mages,]] as well as [[The Beast Master|Summoners,]] although a White Mage subjob is normally required for these jobs, but Dancer is an exception. The healer priority gets changed at the higher levels, where [["Stop Having Fun!" Guys|the TP-burn mentality]] is in full swing, as Red Mages suddenly get the top spot due to not having a stronger healing ability, but because they can [[Cast From HP]] and be more efficient healers... which results in a "Red Mage or bust" train of thought, though less stupid parties do invite other healers when possible.

** Revitalised? More like made entirely viable. M&M (Marine & Medics, with the odd Firebat thrown in) rushes became a fairly effective blunt-hammer attack, especially with Medics able to heal the self-damage caused from the Stim Packs the Marines keep popping in order to move and shoot faster. ''Certainly'' they made the computer opponent that much more dangerous, as the computer used Heal so effectively it's like the game had an autocast option...

* Subverted in the ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]'' spinoff RPG ''[[MS Saga]]''. Most of the characters are competent healers. However, Flitz, the machanic , happens to be a [[The Scrappy|loudmouth, insensitive jerk]] with bad fashion sense and an annoying voice. He also tends to be really, really good at shooting stuff, depending on the particular mech setup he's given. Also, although [[The Hero|Tristan]] is generally used as the tank, he gets the best healing spell in the entire game, which may or may not turn him into The Medic at the end game. The character who the player would be most likely to assume to be The Medic and [[White Magician Girl]], personality-wise, instead is used as a buffer/de-buffer, and has powerful ranged attacks as well.

** Too bad he seems to have lost his white magic for good in a recent arc.

* Piffany in ''[[Nodwick]]''. She generally has to bring Nodwick back from the dead every <s>other week</s> five minutes, which for some reason involves wrapping him in duct tape, although other methods turn up from time to time, such as pouring him into a mould if he's been powdered (and adding water). She's also got the usual repertoire of D&D Cleric skills ([[Turn Undead|Shoo Undead]], [[Think Happy Thoughts|Happy Thoughts]]... okay, maybe not so usual).

* In ''[[Girl Genius]]'', [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20091223 willing to force Klaus himself to have bed rest].

* ''[[Cry Havoc]]'' 's squad of werewolf dogs of war has Hati, the good natured medic who just wants to help people. She spends most of her time cleaning up the mess the other wolfs make.

* [[The Dreamland Chronicles]]' centaurs

* In ''[[Wake the Sleepers]]'', [http://wakethesleepers.com/comics/51 Oralee gets one for Locke.]

* In ''[[Our Little Adventure]]'', [http://danielscreations.com/ola/comics/ep0170.html they resort to a doctor when Angelika's eyes are gone.]

 

 

** In [[Sequel Series]] ''[[The Legend of Korra]]'', [[The Hero]] Korra doesn't hesitate to say she was taught to heal by "Katara, the best there is."

* Pumyra from ''[[Thundercats]]'' was the medic of the group when she appeared along with Lynx-O and Ben-Gali. Her talents came in handy in a few episodes, but she suffered [[Chickification]] and ended up being underdeveloped, appearing in the fewest episodes of the series.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Characters As Device]]

[[Category:Doctor Index]]

[[Category:The Squad]]

[[Category:Five-Man Band]]