Shrodinger's Damage - Page 2 - OG Myth-Weavers

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Shrodinger's Damage

   
Mate, I think 10 checks to succeed would be too much by a mile. A single check taking a minute is way less unfair than a minute with what is effectively nonuple disadvantage. As for the effect on a dying character treating themself, that's already covered by disadvantage, but what of a character who isn't dying? What if they're just poisoned, and using first aid to stop the poison? There's no inherent penalty for being poisoned. There's also no coverage here for using first aid with the help of the person you're treating, which should be better than not having help.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Avianmosquito View Post
Mate, I think 10 checks to succeed would be too much by a mile. A single check taking a minute is way less unfair than a minute with what is effectively nonuple disadvantage.
Ah, the 10 checks were based on D&D combat time. If the check was being done in combat and a stabilize would take a minute, then I'd need 10 checks minimum (6 seconds = 1 round, 60 seconds = 10 rounds), and the heat of combat should impose some threat to the actions, hence the check. Otherwise, I'd just have a Take 10 or something similar when out of combat. If your game has a different breakdown of time in combat, I'd adjust accordingly.

But I can see the simplicity in your single check. In a 5E-like game, I can implement that as the First Aider just using the First Aid action for X consecutive rounds, and only needing to make one roll in that last consecutive round. If his/her attention is pulled elsewhere before the Xth round, s/he'd have to start again.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Avianmosquito View Post
As for the effect on a dying character treating themself, that's already covered by disadvantage, but what of a character who isn't dying? What if they're just poisoned, and using first aid to stop the poison? There's no inherent penalty for being poisoned.
If you'd put the penalties on the condition, you'd be fixing a lot of things at once. This would be easier than looking into each skill and seeing how it interacts with each condition.

To illustrate, if you have Poisoned give a -1 penalty on all skill checks (or a select list of skills), you wouldn't have to indicate this again in the description of First Aid. When the game is running, the Poisoned penalty immediately applies on the First Aider, whether s/he is targeting him/herself or another creature. It'd also mean a Poisoned Jumper gets the same penalty without you having to explain it again in the description of the Jump skill.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Avianmosquito View Post
There's also no coverage here for using first aid with the help of the person you're treating, which should be better than not having help.
I'd have this covered by another rule. In D&D, there's another rule for the Help action, and you might implement something similar. In 5E, the Help provides advantage on the primary character's skill check. If I were writing the book for this game, I wouldn't have to write this again in the First Aid section because it'd be covered in the Help Action section.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dalar View Post
Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Medical care isn't something that can be done in six seconds flat, after all.
Why, from an IC perspective, it can be done! Cauterizing a wound with a torch you're holding would probably require a lot less, unless you want to kill the guy instead.

Now, the problem is it would likely result in an infection post-battle, but then your healer would have the time to help with that, and healing magic should make this into a no-brainer.
And at least the wounded is going to see said end of the battle, unlike what would happen if left unattended because nobody has 10 rounds to devote to the activity.

A torch wouldn't really cauterize the wound as quickly as you'd probably want, and tends to cause collateral damage to the surrounding tissue (which might put the patient in a (greater) state of shock).

You're looking more for red-hot metal for cauterization... but you might need someone to hold the patient down.

Remember the mnemotic MARCH:

Massive hemorrhaging
Airway
Respiratory
Circulation
Hypothermia

Yeah, realistically, not a lot of medical stunts that you can pull off in 6 seconds - even putting a Band-Aid on can strain that time limit. Unless you have something like that medical staple gun thingy for closing gashes.

But this is a game and not everything has to conform to reality. If you as the Game Designer feel like 10 rounds is too long, then cut it down to size. Like I said, I only put 10 rounds there 'coz I was operating under the 1-minute requirement of your First Aid check and the D&D assumption of 1 minute = 10 rounds.

I think the "suspend" thing will work OK, but it doesn't really reflect reality very well. If a person is going to die within 3 rounds, how do you actually stop that? You would need to do something within three rounds. Thus, you probably need them to make a check right away - on a success, perhaps they only delay the death, and need to make another check later. Otherwise, though, you'd have the situation where a person so bad at healing someone they can only make it worse can go and star making a check on someone to put them into temporal stasis to give you 10 rounds for someone else to come and apply magical aid - what happens then? Do they still manage to kill the person when the 10 rounds are up, even if that person is now up and walking about again because of the magic? (Technically probably yes - you're saying that they were actually dead two rounds in - but it gets really messy if they want to start taking actions or whatever; you basically need to roll right away - collapse that wavefunction, if you will - so that you can know how to continue)

Therefore I think it would just be simpler to decide earlier on if they're dead or not, and this probably means more than one roll (so you have three outcomes: 1, they die, 2, you treat them and keep them alive for a bit (hold a cloth against their wound, etc) but they still die, 3, you save them).

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dalar View Post
A torch wouldn't really cauterize the wound as quickly as you'd probably want, and tends to cause collateral damage to the surrounding tissue (which might put the patient in a (greater) state of shock).

You're looking more for red-hot metal for cauterization... but you might need someone to hold the patient down.
If he's out, you don't need anyone. But yes, a flaming sword would be better.
However, lamp oil would probably do in a pinch. Though yes, the next healer is going to hate you for the extra work.

Quote:
Remember the mnemotic MARCH:

Massive hemorrhaging
Airway
Respiratory
Circulation
Hypothermia
Exactly. Stop the M, and worry about the rest later, because it's down the list.




 

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