Medical care vs natural healing

[mb345345]

Hi all, not sure if there's much benefit to medical care tbh. It is restricted to having at least one maxed characteristic and requires a doctor and a sickbay and heals 3+END DM + doctor skill

Natural healing has no restrictions, heals 1D (avg is better than 3)+END DM and I can just nap in my stateroom for a few days.

Only advantages of medical care is the doctor's skill, and use of slow drug. But otherwise doesn't seem to be huge difference

 

[MonsterX]

The doctor's skill makes a big difference for how useful the medical care is and slow drug massively increases the speed of healing. This is all about speed. From a game mechanics perspective, if you have all the time in the world, and don't have a job to do, then sure, you don't need a doctor.

 

[Annatar Giftbringer]

Depends on how injured you are too. If you are in the “requires surgery” phase natural rest will only heal you for END DM each day, which can be negative due to said injuries.

No need for surgery, yet low END? 3+doctor is safer than 1D.

Plus the doctor can Slow Drug you back to business in the blink of an eye

 

[Vormaerin]

And, don't forget, your END is probably a negative modifier since END is the first stat to take damage.

 

[Condottiere]

I would suppose you would need to stabilize the patient's medical condition first, before fast tracking the healing process, and maybe guiding it.

I think you can inflict the patient with some specific drugs, like antibiotics, and maybe sonic pressure.

 

[Vormaerin]

Hi all, not sure if there's much benefit to medical care tbh. It is restricted to having at least one maxed characteristic and requires a doctor and a sickbay and heals 3+END DM + doctor skill

Natural healing has no restrictions, heals 1D (avg is better than 3)+END DM and I can just nap in my stateroom for a few days.

Only advantages of medical care is the doctor's skill, and use of slow drug. But otherwise doesn't seem to be huge difference

Natural healing is not better than medical care unless your Medic is Rank 0. And even then, it's just slightly better on average. 1d6 will average 3.5 per day. Medic 1 will heal 4 per day reliably. But the important thing is you can get worse when Natural Healing and you can't with medical care.

Since it is likely you are dealing with damaged END (since that's the first stat to take wounds in the standard rules), it's risky to naturally heal. Imagine you have -2 END DRM (because you went to 0 END but got first aid). Your range of results for natural healing is -1 to 4. You could get worse. Medical care is a guaranteed 1pt + Med Skill. Even Medic 0 ensures you don't get unlucky and get worse.

The system is designed so that getting hurt in the wilderness is not doom. You can reasonably heal up if given time to rest. Proper medical care is more reliable but does not trivialize wounds. Healing is still slow without hospital care and medical slow drugs.

 

[mb345345]

thanks for all the responses, it's really helped clarify the rules for me

 

[mb345345]

I'm guessing if surgery doesn't heal at least one characteristic fully, then they'll have to try again

 

[Vormaerin]

That appears to be the rule as written. I generally wouldn't do it that way unless it was a major story point. I'd just allow it to mean a longer recovery time.