First Aid, healing and damage

[Deleriad]

So I've been looking at the GM's Handbook and wondering about First Aid. There are two particular issues which are bugging me.

First Aid on a minor injury (i.e. a limb which has 0 or more HPs) restores 1d3 HP. This is how it has always been but it means that that the bigger and healthier you are, the less effect First Aid has. The more Hit Points you have, the less effect First Aid has.

Conversely, on a serious injury, a successful First Aid restores a location to 0 HP regardless of the number of Hit Points. Given that normal healing is 1 HP per day at 0HP or above then you can break your leg, have a First Aid and be walking on it as if nothing ever happened within a day.

Now RQ is meant to be able to work without magic which means that First Aid does need to be useful but the current incarnation of the skill effects seems to be the wrong way around. Problem is finding something relatively simple that strikes a good balance of simulation and game fun.

Don't have any obvious solutions but have been experimenting with something like:
First Aid to an injured location (1 HP or above): recover all HPs.
First Aid to a seriously injured location: recover 1/2 normal HPs (rounded down as usual) but can't increase the HPs to any number over negative 1 HPs.

This does mean that being at 0 or -1HPs puts you in a place where First Aid can't do anything meaningful for you. similarly, A serious injury that's only a few HPs from a Major injury will require more than just First Aid.

The theory is that any trivial injury is basically no more than bruising, bleeding and so on while a serious injury is likely to be a break, bad internal bruising, deep cut and such like. would be interested to know what other people have been doing if they haven't be playing RAW.

 

[Denalor]

You mentioned the GMH. The silliest ruling I found there on page 53 is that it takes shorter time to apply First Aid with a critical success. I don’t know how anyone else does this, but I only roll AFTER the time has been spent, be it First Aid, Spell Casting or whatever. So the chars roll 1D4+1 to see how many combat actions they need and only after that time is spent, they are allowed to roll the dice. If it’s a success, how could you possibly back-paddle and reduce the time and thus literally sunder the chronology ?

Given the immensely reduced down-times if you use your approach (first aid being far more powerful for minor wounds), I would not go for it.
I don’t think that the relation between First Aid and general health of the injured person is the right approach.
The thinking behind the RAW is – I assume – that you really can’t do much against bruises and similar trivial damage, you only ease the suffering somewhat, thus heal 1d3 HPs.
Only once you actually have a “real” wound (i.e. a serious one), you can do something about it (put herbs in the cut, bandage the wound, immobilize a broken arm, etc). Thus, First Aid’s game mechanic is actually the change from serious to minor wound. Well, and as they have defined a minor wound to be 0 HPs, that translates to First Aid being able to heal far more than 1d3 HPs.
I personally don’t like that instant recovery with first aid.

In fact I’ve been considering using Healing (skill) instead of First Aid in the case of serious injuries. I.e. First Aid may be used to heal 1D3 HP on a serious wound (but may not bring it to 0 or above HPs), but only Healing will completely restore the location to 0 HP. It takes a lot more time and only a skilled person can bring real relief.
This would also be consistent with the idea that First Aid is essentially only able to ease the pain.
But so far I’ve not made the change, as this will increase down time considerably (as the chars need to find someone with Healing skill). Perhaps allowing a critical success on first aid to bring the same result as healing would be the solution ?
As it is, if I were a player, I’d go for laymembership in Barntar Orlanthson’s cult and grab the heal runic spell and reserve first aid for those serious injuries only (because once you have applied first aid you are not allowed to use it again, until the location is completely healed !). Of course, that’s two improvement rolls (to get Runecasting - Fertility), 200 silver and two days (to learn Heal II).

 

[Deleriad]

The thinking behind the RAW is – I assume – that you really can’t do much against bruises and similar trivial damage, you only ease the suffering somewhat, thus heal 1d3 HPs.

The problem with this approach (and the natural healing times in RQ) is the paradox of health. Someone with a CON of 15 has 1 more HP per location than someone with a CON of 10. If both people end up with 0 HPs in a location then the healthier person takes longer to fully recover.

There's no easy solution admittedly and the balance between game fun (it's not generally all that interesting having to sit at home for 10 weeks while a broken leg heals) and something that looks convincing isn't easy. Especially if First Aid can end up being a lot more effective than healing magic.

How about something like this.
First Aid on a minor wound (0 or more HPs) recovers half of the location's normal HPs (All HPs on a critical).
First Aid on a Serious Wound: recovers 1 HP. On a critical recovers half of the normal HPs but can't raise a location above 0 HPs.

Limits to First Aid. You can only try once per location - even if it fails - because you don't want to be removing all the bandages and starting again. First Aid can't heal any damage that hasn't been received in the last few minutes; i.e. it can't heal old wounds. If you want to be specific, can't heal anything that happened more than patient's CON in minutes ago.

Natural Healing.
Minor wound. Half normal HPs per week.
Serious Wound. Half normal HPs per week if Resilience test is successful, otherwise 1 HP. This effect can't raise a location above 0 HPs though.

To fully heal a Serious Wound could then take between 3 weeks to several months depending on how resilient a patient is. If a patient has multiple seriously injured locations you would make one resilience roll per location. Really hard-core GMs could rule that a fumbled resilience roll causes the loss of half normal HPs from the seriously injured location - probably causing a major wound.

Healing Magic works same as it has always done. You get less bang for your buck with minor wounds but that's because minor wounds are only minor.

 

[kintire]

You mentioned the GMH. The silliest ruling I found there on page 53 is that it takes shorter time to apply First Aid with a critical success. I don’t know how anyone else does this, but I only roll AFTER the time has been spent, be it First Aid, Spell Casting or whatever. So the chars roll 1D4+1 to see how many combat actions they need and only after that time is spent, they are allowed to roll the dice. If it’s a success, how could you possibly back-paddle and reduce the time and thus literally sunder the chronology ?

Well, I roll the skill and the how long it takes at the same time, when the action is announced, and thus it works fine.

Given the immensely reduced down-times if you use your approach (first aid being far more powerful for minor wounds), I would not go for it.

Why? You talk as if long down times are a good thing. In many ways, I dislike crippling injury more than death. If your PC dies, you can create another and carry on. If they are on a weeks long downtime, its snoozeville in the corner while everyone else has fun for the next few sessions. As far as I'm concerned, a First Aid system that reduces downtime is a clear win.

 

[Denalor]

I roll the skill and the how long it takes at the same time

Seems just weird, considering the possibility of interruptions. But this is mainly the issue with spellcasting. What is the use of rolling the spellcasting roll before you actually finished the casting time when someone could interrupt the whole action.
Guess it's a matter of taste.

You talk as if long down times are a good thing

It depends on what kind of campaign you want to play. RQ is IMHO a game where combat is very deadly (compared with e.g. D&D). For me it is important to make that clear to my players (who are used to D&D and the likes). Otherwise the chars become too careless or reckless. So if you have to stay down to heal the next time you might consider different approaches rather than wielding you axe at a foe you can't best.
Of course, I do agree wholeheartedly that too much down-time is annoying to the extreme, but Deleriad's first approach would allow chars to instantly heal anything that is max a minor wound. Also the "one application only" of first aid is more less completely negated as it can heal completely.
But then again, if you play in a campaign where magical healing is kind of rare I do suppose you need some adjustment to fist aid and natural healing.

 

[Denalor]

Perhaps a differnt point of view could do the thing ?
Let's assume that the wound is the basis, not the health of a person.

If your huge, barrel-chested Barbarian (6HP in arm) gets cut with a sword for 3 damage, the wound is a 3 damage wound. And it’s the same 3 damage wound for your puny, skinny Townsman (3HP in arm).
Your barbarian might take two such wounds and still be able to use his arm, but for the Townsmen, the second wound will heavily damage his arm.
The Healer would have to heal the 3 damage wound, he’s rubbing in herbs and stuff to treat that particular wound.
So you change perspective from health status to looking at each single wound.

However that approach would need a lot of bookkeeping.
You’d need to keep track of each WOUND and allow the application of First Aid for each wound.
You’d need to differentiate between lots of minor cuts (say 3 wounds à 2 HP each) and a big cut (a single wound of 6HP).
You could decide that a minor cut (say, up to 3HP damage) could be completely healed with first aid, but anything bigger needs Healing (you could, however, allow First Aid to ameliorate this serious injury with First Aid, i.e. heal 3 HP).
You would then need to consider the status of the total HP remaining in a location. And rename the summary on page 58 (RQ Deluxe) from wound to “injured” (or something like that). And base natural healing etc. on the injured status rather than the wound status.
I personally would only allow actual severance of limbs for big wounds rather than big injuries.

So, all that would probably lead to something like this:

Status of Wounds (i.e. single hit)
Minor Wound
Any single damage of up to 3 points.
No loss of combat actions upon receiving the wound
First Aid will completely heal this wound.
Healing has no effect.

Serious Wound
Any single damage between 4 and 6 damage.
Loss of 1 combat action upon receiving the wound
First Aid will heal 3 HP. The wound is still considered serious though.
Healing will change the status to Minor Wound.

Major Wound
Any single damage of more than 6 damage
Loss of 1d4 combat actions upon receiving the wound. Severance of limbs possible (if damage dealt is greater than the maxHP)
Healing will change the status to Serious Wound.

Status of Injury (i.e. consideration of current location hit points)
Lightly Injured
The location’s HP are reduced to 0.
Loss of 1 combat action

Heavily Injured
The location’s HP is between -1 and – maxHP.
Loss of 1d4 combat actions
If head, chest or abdomen: immediate Resilience test and Resilience test every round to remain conscious
Personal note: I have already dropped the repeated rolls and apply an opposed roll instead
If arms or legs: locations useless

Critically Injured
The location’ HP is at less than –max HP
Lose 1d4 combat actions and drop prone
If head, chest or abdomen: immediate resilience test or die. If alive second immediate Resilience test to stay conscious. Both (!) Resilience tests every round to prevent death or unconsciousness (until either location restored to 1 HP or First Aid has been applied). Death from blood loss within (CON+POW)/2 rounds
If arms or legs: immediate Resilience test and Resilience test every round to remain conscious (until either location restored to 1 HP or First Aid has been applied). Death from blood loss within (CON+POW) rounds

Natural Healing
Consider all wounds of a location and determine the worst wound.
If the worst wound is minor Natural Healing restores 1HP per day (only light activity allowed).
If the worst wound is serious Natural Healing restores 1HP per day (only light activity allowed) if the character succeeds with a Resilience test.
If the worst wound is major no Natural healing possible

Mind, the numbers are just "hip-shots" and most likely would need adjustment.

Well, for me that's simply too much book-keeping, but this approach would allow more first aid applications (1 per wound instead of one per location) and thus reduce down-times (at least those caused by a couple of minor cuts) would "explain" (that's not really the right word here) a bit your observation that a healthier person takes longer to fully recover.

 

[soltakss]

Yes, the wound is important. If you cut a skinny person's arm to the bone then you cut through a lot less muscle than if you cut a muscular/fat person's arm to the bone. It stands to reason that the smaller wound will take less time to heal.

Similarly, in RQ, someone with more hit points in a location will take longer to heal from a major wound.

Personally, I've not got a problem with that.

Having said that, I can't remember the last time I saw a RQ PC or NPC in any game I played in who let a wound heal naturally - in the games I play there's usually enough magic around for quick healing.

 

[Deleriad]

Having said that, I can't remember the last time I saw a RQ PC or NPC in any game I played in who let a wound heal naturally - in the games I play there's usually enough magic around for quick healing.

A lot of things are more problematic on paper than in play where you tend to gloss over them anyway. I'm a bit of system junky though and like things to make some sort of sense on paper. The current First Aid system is rather odd in that it will heal a serious wound instantly but be rather useless against a minor wound - surely the wrong way around.

Similarly it seems to me that two people who are STR 10, CON 10 and SIZ 13 vs STR 10 CON 15 SIZ 13 respectively have pretty similar body and muscle mass but one (with higher con) is both harder to kill yet takes longer to recover from a serious wound than the more sickly one. Again, that seems counterintuitive.

Tracking individual wounds is sort of what BRP does but you sort of have to set up character sheets to deal with it and it's more book-keeping than I like.

Finally, I do think the rules ought to be able to work in settings with no ready access to healing magic without having PCs spend most their time recuperating. Even the Blood of Orlanth campaign I'm running presupposes that healing magic is not common and that powerful healing magic is extremely rare.

BTW having been following your RQ sci-fi and occasionally working on RQ modern, both of which presupposed no such thing as healing magic, first aid and natural healing needs to make some sort of sense.

 

[soltakss]

BTW having been following your RQ sci-fi and occasionally working on RQ modern, both of which presupposed no such thing as healing magic, first aid and natural healing needs to make some sort of sense.

SciFi settings have things like Medikits, Regen Tanks and Psionic Healing, which take the place of magical healing, but point taken.

 

[Deleriad]

SciFi settings have things like Medikits, Regen Tanks and Psionic Healing, which take the place of magical healing, but point taken.

One of the good things about the way MRQ handles damage and healing is that you can pretty much write out in plain English what it is that you think should happen and then try to formulate the rules accordingly.

E.g. MRQ has three types on injury: minor, serious and major
and two types of location: vital, non-vital.
I also include overwhelming damage: any type of damage that can inflict a major injury to a fully healed location in a single blow.

So you can ask questions like, other than loss of HPs:
What effect should a minor wound have on a character? Should minor wounds heal quickly or slowly? What effect should First Aid have on a minor wound? and so on.

That makes things like regen tanks, medkits, life-support pods and so on relatively easy to conceptualise.