Expeditions: Rome — How to Heal Injuries and Wounds to Keep From Dying

Expeditions: Rome requires you to be careful when battling foes, lest you die from injuries or wounds sustained in combat. If any of your party members are hurt, you’ll need to know how to heal characters to keep them fighting. If they’re downed, they could miss a few battles — or worse.

This Expeditions: Rome guide explains all of the ways your characters can get injured or wounded, as well as all of the ways you can heal them, nursing them back to health. Here’s our guide to help you heal injuries, revive incapacitated characters, and avoid deaths in Expeditions: Rome.

How to Heal, Revive, and Stay Alive in Expeditions: Rome

How to Heal During Battle

First, let’s talk about the regular healing mechanics in Expeditions: Rome. There are a few ways to keep your characters in tip-top shape:

Bandages

Bandages can be equipped in your tactical slot, allowing you to use them without spending an action point. They will, however, run out of charges. You can either replenish them in a Legion outpost if you have the Speculator Tent unlocked or craft new ones through the Armory. We go into greater detail about these mechanics in our Legion outpost upgrades guide and our crafting guide.

Healing Skills

The Triarius class can function as a medic on the battlefield. The class has a few healing abilities, such as Cure — Good As New and Rousing Speech, that can be used to keep HP up. Triarsus can even revive fallen comrades (more on that below). Our full Triarius class and best skills guide has more info.

Soothe Pain

Your unique companion, Syneros, can cast the Soothe Pain ability if he’s unarmed. Make sure he doesn’t have a second weapon in his loadout, then click on the Roman numeral I button on the weapon’s icon to switch to an unarmed setup.

Default Healing

By default, your entire party will heal up after each battle. But there are a few exceptions, such as major multi-phase encounters that conclude the campaign’s acts.

How to Revive an Incapacitated Character in Battle

If a character’s HP drops to zero, they’ll be in a downed/incapacitated state. When this occurs, they only have a few turns until they bleed out and die (we’ll talk more about deaths below). Make sure there are allies nearby who can use the following to stabilize their condition:

• Bandages: These will prevent a character from bleeding out.
• Aid: All characters can do this if they’re in the unarmed stance. Check your inventory for the relevant weapon skill to see if it’s equipped.
• Revive: Available to the Triarius class. This will not only help an incapacitated character get back up, but they can also rejoin the fight.

Wounded and Injured Characters

Any character that gets downed/incapacitated can become injured or wounded, including those who got revived during a battle. The chance and severity of an injury or wound are determined by the Injury Probability setting in the Difficulty menu.

An injury or wound will, for the most part, be related to how a character was downed. For example, if someone gets incapacitated while standing in flames, they’ll have burns as an injury. Others, meanwhile, could be related to blunt trauma, stab wounds, or poisons.

Another way to get injured or wounded is if you make the wrong decision in some random events. Suffice to say, if you think an event in a quest is risky, then there’s a chance a party member will feel the consequences. One instance is the Lair of the Chimera random event, which seems to always lead to a critical injury for a character.

Additionally, characters who have sustained moderate or more serious injuries cannot join battles. Lastly, it’s possible for injuries to deteriorate over time.

Healing Injuries and Wounds in Expeditions: Rome: Character Perks, Triage, and Dispensary

There are two ways you can heal injuries and wounds in Expeditions: Rome, and each one has pros and cons:

Triage

Triage can be accessed by opening the menu. Select the injured character, then choose someone with healing-related perks (more on these below). The treatment works for all injuries except critical injuries. Regardless, the process costs medicine every few hours in-game.

At the very least, your characters will remain in your party, which is helpful if you want to stay on the go.

Dispensary

This is a building in your Legion outpost. Simply leave injured characters here and wait until their condition improves. This won’t use up your medicine, but you do have to return to the outpost to add them back to your party. Also, the Dispensary is the only way to heal those with critical injuries.

Character Perks

Regarding the character perks, there are several that can be used to heal injuries in the Triage menu in Expeditions: Rome. You can check the stats page or the Legion recruitment page (via the tent) to see if anyone has these perks.

• First Aid: Prevents an injury from deteriorating further.
• Doctor: Can treat laceration, puncture, trauma, and fracture injuries.
• Physician: Can treat burn, infection, and poison injuries. None of your unique companions have this perk by default. However, Syneros will obtain it automatically if you complete the Olympian sidequest.
• Self-Treatment: Characters can heal themselves without a penalty to treatment speed.
• Medicus: While not part of Triage treatment, this perk determines the casualty survival rate of soldiers in Legion battles (only if the character is leading that army). 

Character Deaths in Expeditions: Rome

Finally, let’s discuss how characters in Expeditions: Rome can die. Being incapacitated in a battle can cause a character to bleed out. If you enable the Combat Deaths setting prior to starting the campaign, then your comrades will die if no one is able to stabilize their condition in battle.

If a character has a critical injury and it’s not treated in a Dispensary, they’ll die after a few days. If the main character suffers a critical injury, you’ll need to head straight to the Dispensary and wait in the camp until they’re healthy. This will automatically let you pass the time since you won’t be able to venture out.

Running out of rations can cause you to starve, and running out of water can cause you to die of thirst. If generic recruits end up dead, they’re gone for good. If the main character or any unique companions die, it’s a game over.

And that’s basically all you need to know about how to heal your characters in Expeditions: Rome. There are many ways main and secondary characters can die in the game, but if you know the resources, perks, and other methods of healing, you’ll be able to stay among the living longer. For more tips, consider heading over to our Expeditions guides hub.