Hi All

I finally ran some systems testing with my group on Saturday and a question came up in regards taking additional time with the Medicine skill.

The player in question had a 6 dice pool and wanted to take 10 minutes rather than 1 minute to bandage his hurt companion. Since this would be 10 times slower than normal the chart says he should receive a +8 to his pool, which is the equivalent of 4 extra successes on average, which means 2 lethal points fully healed, in addition to his own pool.

So if the player was to take average on his skill that would be 3 lethal fully healed and 1 lethal turned into non-lethal, after every fight in which they have 10 minutes to spare to bandage up.

I have to be honest and say that in regards First Aid I feel that its a little bit powerful to allow the use of the taking your time rule, as it makes healing up after battles much easier and reduces the significance of fights. That's just my gut feeling on first looking at it. I was wondering what the official stance is in regards the use ? .

One other thing that came up in regards medicine was the use of the Chirgery sub skill. Since damage in the game is represented as health levels and not specific damage, like broken bones, or bleeding out, what use is the Chirgery sub skill over say First Aid ? ... Apart from obviously uses when the story places a npc who has an obvious requirement for an operation ? .

Thank you for any insight you can give . Myself and my group certainly appreciate it.

Mara.

Hullo, Marachai,

Welcome to the DESOLATION forums! Great to have another newbie to the game system here. You'll find the folks here on the forums a really friendly group, willing to share our experience with the game and offer all sorts of advice.



While I can't speak officially, I think there's something that the player in question forgot. While it's fine to say that the character took the extra time to heal the character in question, the state of the injury at the time it needed healing was also something of relevance. If the character is in a condition where he may be taking additional damage due to the nature of the wound, I wouldn't want a character administering First Aid to me and deciding to take the extra time to do it, especially if I haven't stabilized on my own. In a ten minute period, my character might bleed to death!

It also depends on the circumstances of the battle in question, too. For example, did the character fight some orcs or whatever, and did the character spend 10 minutes in the same area administering First Aid? If so, how did the characters know there might not be more orcs or whatever in the area?



Chirurgy is the form of surgery that is used in lots of fantasy and post-apocalyptic games where technology isn't all that high or in cases where it has been lost and more primitive methods need to be used. From my own game point of view, Chrirugy is used to represent surgery and more specialized treatment of wounds that can't be healed strictly by First Aid. I would argue that any Wound which drives a character's Health below 0 would qualify for Chrirugy. To me, any Wound that is considered Lethal damage might also be a candidate for Chrirgy.

Hope this helps.

Just my $0.02 on the subject.

Hi JohnK,

Thank you for your welcome to the forums, it is much appreciated.

I realise that there are many implications to taking such long time with first aid. In the situation where this question came up the wounded character was not below 0 in health, and was not suffering from any constant damaging attack, like say poison.

I know as a GM I can make it so that after a fight the players wouldn't have the time required to constantly take their time with first aid, and that is certainly a controlling factor over this getting out of hand. I just wanted to know if it was intended that players should be able to take their time for the +8 bonus, assuming there was no other danger.

With my players skill at 6 and with the addition of the +8 for taking time and another +2 for synergy with one of the other players, that's 16 dice, so an average of 8, which would mean 4 lethal fully healed after every fight that they could manage the time. That seems like a lot of healing to me, but then perhaps the intent is that players can recover pretty fast after fights, to allow for additional fights in one session ? I've not quite got a handle yet on how grim the setting should be.

I appreciate your answer though .

Mara

Hullo, Mara,





Insofar as the First Aid sub-skill of Medicine is concerned, I think there's something else to bear in mind that should influence the time taken to use the skill. First Aid is used primarily to bandage up a character's wounds, stop bleeding, and possibly revive the patient (as written in the book under the description of the skill). The time given in the healing section for the use of First Aid of 1 minute implies that it's a very rapid kind of treatment. To me, that kind of treatment doesn't require 10 minutes of work, but I can see where some would argue that it does or that it could.

I feel that to a large extent, the extra time bonuses are really something that needs to be decided on a case-by-case basis by the GM. And when it comes down to it, the rules work both ways - there are bonuses for taking extra time, and there are penalties for taking less time.

I'll stick my nose into this discussion just long enough to stress something that John touched on.

The fact that the extended time bonus exists doesn't mean that it can be applied across the board. There are certain tasks that would not benefit very much, or at all, from taking more time at it, and applying Fist Aid can certainly be considered one of them.

The Law of Common Sense always applies. If it doesn't sound right or make sense, don't allow it. Otherwise, you'd have thieves attempting to backstab an opponent with a siege ballista.

HAHAHA, reminds me of shadowbane. Not so much with ballistas, but great axes and great swords... I miss that game.

Thanks all for the advice.

As far as first aid goes I certainly intend to keep an eye on it in play and to not often allow the extra bonus from taking longer. I think in some cases I may allow it, but in general I'd rather not. I prefer the players don't have such easy access to such large healing ... I want battles and the results of such to mean something. Not just something you can forget about 10 minutes later because you took all the damage away . I like grim.

Mara

Hullo, Nestor,



ROFL!!!

I've actually seen that happen in the <i>Dying Earth</i> rpg from Pelgrane Press, based on Jack Vance's stuff (and the folks at Pelgrane have reacquired the rights to do the game again)! Still amazed how the player characters finagled getting hold of the ballista in the first place, though!

Hullo, Mara,



In that case, I would emphasize the grim. By its very nature as a post-apocalyptic setting, Scondera and the game world of Desolaation is a grim, savage, nasty place. To run it in a grim fashion, emphasize that element of the game. And use the rules to do so as well. However, the grimness of the game setting has to be carefully handled, lest the players be constantly depressed when playing the game and so forth. So, temper the grimness with a few other aspects and all.