| From: | Wafflemeisters <evamarie@**********.NET> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Damge,conciousness, and recovery [LONG] |
| Date: | Fri, 10 Apr 1998 23:52:44 -0500 |
on changing how certain aspects of handling damage in SR work. I'm
having web problems right now,so I figured I'd throw up my ideas while
folks were still interested (maybe).
One thing I'd really like to change is the physical wounds recovery
tests. The rules for recovering stun are simpler, and allow box by box
tracking of recovery, nice when you deal with the "walking wounded".
Obviously, you can't recover while not resting, but what if you just
rest 5 days? Thats not always enough to go from a serious to a moderte,
but it should have some effect.
I was aiming for something that require healing to take about as long
as normal, but allows day to day recovery traking.
I was figuring on allowing a body test every (wound modifier) days,
with a TN equal to either the number of physical boxes currently filled
in plus wound penalties (using the doctoring table) . A succes means
you heal 1 box of physical damage. Cyberware does not help with this
test, as usual for healing.
[This is really hard for patients with lots of overflow. Then again,
anybody living with 10+ boxes of overflow is probaly sevearly mangled,
something the current system ignores (healing overflowis just like
healing any deadly). The other problem is that allowing a test daily let
high body character bounce back from deadlies in record time, even in
less than optimal conditions, since just one succes is needed to heal a
box.]
Anyhow, here are my other rules to date- they seem fairly solid to me.
I don't like "bleeding" rules, because on a SR time scale, such things
should not really affect combat, and should just instead be more lethal
wounds. Yes, its annoying you can't be bleeding without taking a deadly
wound that results in unciousness.
I changed this a simple way: deadly wound levels give a +4 TN / -4
intitive and CAN (usually will) cause unconciousness.
When you have reached 10 boxes of stun damage, make a test with body or
willpower (players choice) against 6+ injury modifiers each turn (before
your intitive roll). A succes means you remain concious and can act
normally. Failure means you are now unconcious, as per normal stun
damage rules.
When you reach 10 or more boxes of physical damage, make a Body test
against 6+ injury modifiers. A succes means you are concious, but
disabled- you will remain concious unless you take more damage (say, if
you are not stabalized), in which case you will have to make another
test (if still alive).
However, you can't move or act, but can speak and look around and
perform non strenous gestures, sort of; at this point, tests are
required even for normally easy things, and are difficult, given the +4
modifier.
Having any overflow boxes make things even worse -blood loss causes
confusion and loss of co-ordination. A flat penalty per box would
penalize high body characters just for surviving, but the GM may
determine the character's actions and perceptions if he remains concious
with more than half his overflow boxes filled. The GM is encouraged to
be creative but realistic- you won’t stand up and run off a roof, but
you could very well bable like a fool, and maybe thrash around enough to
fall out an open helecopter door. The character's best option is to lie
down somewhere safe and pass out before he reaches this point....
Having pain tollerance, pain resistance, or damage compensators of
level 10+, or an active pain editor, would automatically allow you to
remain concious (up to the apropriate damage level), and even to act
with "D" physical wounds. Taking action while so greiviously injured
would cause (physical boxes) light damage each time you moved or acted.
This could be very dangerous if you filled more than 1/2 your overflow,
however!
This makes a pain editor / trauma damper combo quite effective at
keeping you on your feet, if not alive, since you could act when past
deadly physical and take "only" light stun. The "pain editor" and its
ilk are cyberpunk staples, and less effective and more probelematic
equivalents might even be availibale as 'softs (or BTL's) and as drugs
(blockers, 'dorphs, PCP...), making ganger opponents really
entertaining.
In either case (D stun or physical), Biotech skill can help a victim
remain or regain conciousness. The attending ”doctor” must make a
biotech roll whenver the character tests for unconciousness, with the
same TN as the trauma victims test to reamain concious plus normal first
aid mods, +2 per test of this sort made on the patient. This can be done
along with keeping the patient stablized, if you want to question a
dying man, for example.
Stabilization and dieing are not be changed at all- you're still in
need of stablization and in danger of dieing, you just might remain
conciuos while it happens (lucky you- maybe you can call DocWagon, if
you have the easy use call bracelet, or can remember and reach your
speed dial cellphone).
Healing and Complications:
"Complications” to injuries don’t manifest during a fight- a wound that
causes problematic bleeding simply has a higher damage code, and maybe
leeds to some recovery complications.
"Complications" for stun wounds are easy to figure as part of thestun
recovery test- if you fail a normal stun recovery test (2+ injury mods),
you take L physical damage; generally, a temporary concusion takes a
while to develop into something bad. This means that stun damage isn’t
alwys just “shrugged off”, and that having a lot of damage on both
tracks canbe very dangerous, especiallyif your body rating is low. Note
that cyberware does not aid recovery tests.
Aplication of Biotech skill to treat stun wounds can prevent this
effect at any point, with the same TN's as treating physical wounds with
firstaid, although biotech does not help actual recovery from stun
damage. This takes the same amount of time as first aid, and will
prevent the next failed stun recovery test from causing harm, but must
be done again if the patient fails any stun recovery test- so monetoring
the patient is a good idea.
"Complications" for Physical wounds are tougher to implement.
Lingering, hard to treat internal bleeding and such are not to badly
covered by the "healing" test that determines if you need a real
physicians care, although these tests are to easy for some people to
pass, and not influenced by wound type and other likely factors. They
also get ignored or reduced in difficulty a lot, given magical healing
and first aid.
To determine if unexpected long term healing complications develop, see
if you pass the "Wound Table" test, given the TN for your worst wounds
before treatment. You may fail this, even if you can heal without a
doctors aid; the whole point is, fast cures might miss some underlying
problem. If you need a doctor, you automatically have a healing
complication- thats why you need a doctor. Not only are you not
getting better, you will probaly get worse. Anybody who reaches 10 boxes
atomatically has a healing complication that magical healing and first
aid can not help- which is good, because deadlies SHOULD send you to a
doctor!
The GM may want to roll the test dice for the character, or roll the
same dice (and rerolls), using his results for the “complications” test.
If this (harder) test fails and a doctor is not seen, your condition
will likely get worse: the GM makes a test using dice equal to the boxes
of current physical damage against the patients (non cybered) body. He
then divides 24 hours by the resulting succeses to find the time before
the person takes another box of physical damage (and then another test
is rolled...). No succeses means no imediate further damage, but the GM
will roll again in another 24 hours.
This damage is considered part of the original wound for purposes of
being healed through magical healing, or first aid, so those techniques
can not eleminate these "extra" boxes. Lucky rolls on normal physical
healing as above can help. It possible to reduce the original injury
boxes to the point where it is unlikely that the injury will “act up”,
but this is unlikely for most people with anything more than moderate
wounds, given the dice rolled and the time natural healing can take. It
might even be possible to have a "complication", but no injuries- but as
soon as you took damage, it would act up.
These effects can be stopped under a real physicians care. A physician
must dignose the problem, using biology (medicine) skill, or a diagnose
spell with succeses equal to the patients injury modifiers. Somebody
informed of the dignoses must then perform surgery to correct the
problem.
END
-Mongoose
P.S. I'm working on rules for diagnoses and surgery on "complications",
but they are beyond the scope of damge rules used in SR, so I stopped
there. Very simlar rules might be used to simulate other progressive
health problems.
I also ignored permenant damage, which would be more likey to occur if
you take lots of overflow, or have complications, or get complications
treated by an incompetant surgeon.
Mongoose
