Using First Aid, Are stun and physical considered separate wounds? Options

[Redjack]

Using First Aid
Characters with the First Aid skill may immediately help reduce the trauma of wounds (Stun or Physical). {.. snip..} First Aid may only be applied to a character once (for that set of wounds), and it may not be applied if the character has been magically healed.

To me, this seems cut and dried. You can make one attempt for stun and one attempt for physical as you may heal "Stun or Physical" and First Aid can only be used once "for that set of wounds"... ergo once per each set of wounds.

The debate seems to boil down to whether or not stun and physical are considered two separate sets of wounds. To me, it is clear since wounds is further defined within the description of First Aid as "Stun or Physical". Thoughts?

[Dashifen]

For me, it's always broken down not into the stun/physical tracks, but when the wounds were applied. I usually allow First Aid once per "event" that causes wounds, be that "event" an entire combat scene, a summoning/binding attempt, etc. Usually, within these "events" there's the possibility for more than one test causing wounds at different times (like summoning drain and then binding drain). Regardless, I consider this one "set of wounds" with respect to being able to use First Aid on them.

So, to answer your actual question, I allow a First Aid to heal the set of wounds. If someone suffers massive drain during a summoning/binding attempt which overflows their stun into physical, then the First Aid test could actually heal up some of that Physical and some of that Stun. For example, if the mage takes 10 boxes of stun overflowing 2 boxes of physical, and the First Aid test yields 4 hits, that would patch up the 2 Physical wounds and 2 of the Stun wounds as well. First Aid could not be used to effect the remaining 8 boxes of Stun damage.

Same would hold true for combat, especially highly armored folk who often take some Stun damage when their armor switches damage from Physical to Stun. Granted, I tend to interpret things in the most complex way possible and my brain seems to misunderstand even the most simple ideas sometimes, so it's quite possible that no one else reads the rules this way.

[Redjack]

So according to that, if I take 5p from a gunshot, then 4s from drain, then 3p from a club, I can get three separate first aid checks, one for each set of wounds, right?

[bibliophile20]

So according to that, if I take 5p from a gunshot, then 4s from drain, then 3p from a club, I can get three separate first aid checks, one for each set of wounds, right?

Except for healing the drain, yeah, that's how I'd rule it; the hole in your shoulder can get stoppered, healing a few boxes of damage, and the smack to the leg with the club can have NewSkin and BruiseBeGone (ExtraLargeEconomySize) applied to it, but the Drain can't be fixed with anything but time.

[Eyeless Blond]

Huh. I just realized, First Aid only allows you to heal up to your skill in damage, but you can default.

But, what good is defaulting? If your skill is 0, then you can use first aid to heal a grand total of... 0 boxes of damage? Even with a medkit, which adds its rating, you're still limited to your skill, which is 0.

[jago668]

The way we do it is useable once per set of wounds. So if you get shot twice, each for 3 boxes of physical damage. Then you can roll first aid once, and cure up to 6 boxes of damage (since that is all you have), or you skill whichever is lower. So say you got 3 boxes healed, leaving you with 3. Then you get stabbed for 2 boxes of physical. Well you could be first aided again for the stab wound since it is a new injury that occured after the first set was bandaged. Now you could only heal the 2 boxes, not the 3 boxes remaining from the first set.

It gives someone a reason to actually stop and get some duct tape and super glue put on. Maybe even a cute little bandaid with unicorns and princesses on it.

[WearzManySkins]

I can see first aid being used on each received wound ie physical or stun damage.

But using it to "heal" drain from spells and technomage actions ie Sprite compiling....is at best a grey area.

A bruise ie stun damage is fairly obvious to most looking over your body.

Does a first aid kit have the needed sensors/diagnostic tools to see any neurological issues/damage caused but compiling sprites or matrix damage?

As for the drain due to summoning a spirit or casting a spell...how does a first aid skill/kit enable you to "percieve" that?

I would say that physical damage ie physical or stun first aid can be used to "heal" each would of such provided the "golden hour" is in effect.

As for spell/summoning drain, matrix damage and technomage drains, a first aid skill/kit is not good enough, you need a medical skill and or shop/facility.

WMS

[WearzManySkins]

It gives someone a reason to actually stop and get some duct tape and super glue put on. Maybe even a cute little bandaid with unicorns and princesses on it.

FYI Super Glue was originally developed as a suture less means of wound closure in surgeries. I know a Sterile Processing Tech who used to have to Sterilize the powder prior to each surgical use. The powder was mixed in the OR room as the surgeon needed it. It was later made in the super glues of today.

WMS

[hyzmarca]

Drain isn't some sort of mystical life-force sucking, that's Essence Loss which can't be healed by First Aid. Drain is actual physical injury caused by channeling mystical forces through your body. It's stigmata. It's your eyeballs explosing and squirting blood out ten feet. Its your hands spontaneously combusting with magical fire leaving you with horrible burns whne it dies out. It is your skin cracking and oozing for no apparent reason. It is chunks of your brain necrotizing. It is magical energies bursting out of a giant hole in your chest like Chamber from the X-men. Stun drain is less. It is your classic bleeding hands and feet or bleeding from the eyes or from the ears or spontaneous bruising. Physical drain is your bones shattering from within because you can't contain the mystical forces being channeled through them.

[Riley37]

The separation of "wounds that cause damage and eventually kill you" and "woulds that cause pain and eventually make you pass out" into two entirely separate tracks is going to cause oddnesses and inconsistencies in one form or another. They should be inter-related, perhaps in a way that draws on the White Wolf damage system.

My very basic Red Cross First Aid training included lots of techniques for making a wound less likely to aggravate (stopping bleeding, keeping a broken bone from further jarring, etc.) but didn't include anything that would make a bruise or an electrical shock hurt any less, except analgesics; those are kinda like stim patches but without the "unable to rest" side effect. Which, by the way, is tough on mages using them to ignore the penalties from Stun caused by Drain. Did aspirin and ibuprofen become ineffective when magic returned in 2011? Is there no substance one can usefully take when one *wants* to ease a big headache by lying down and napping?

There's an argument for nerfing First Aid with a rule that each trauma event can be at best reduced from multiple boxes of damage (eg a gaping bleeding hole in your body) to a single box (a taped-shut laceration/puncture).

Anyone here done medicine on people who got up again for further exertion, eg boxers?

[jago668]

FYI Super Glue was originally developed as a suture less means of wound closure in surgeries. I know a Sterile Processing Tech who used to have to Sterilize the powder prior to each surgical use. The powder was mixed in the OR room as the surgeon needed it. It was later made in the super glues of today.

WMS

Actually I was aware that it was originally designed for such a purpose. Superglue you buy in a store isn't, but I new it started its life as a sutureless wound closure thingy stuff majigger.

[sungun]

Actually I was aware that it was originally designed for such a purpose. Superglue you buy in a store isn't, but I new it started its life as a sutureless wound closure thingy stuff majigger.

the basic chemical component, the stuff that has the real magic in superglue was actually designed to make gun sights. wiki says, "Cyanoacrylate was discovered by Harry Coover at Eastman Kodak during World War II when searching for a way to make plastic gun-sight lenses. It did not solve this problem, since it stuck to all the apparatus used to handle it." i think he tried it for a couple of other failed applications before landing on wounds and general glue.

[Slymoon]

Huh. I just realized, First Aid only allows you to heal up to your skill in damage, but you can default.

But, what good is defaulting? If your skill is 0, then you can use first aid to heal a grand total of... 0 boxes of damage? Even with a medkit, which adds its rating, you're still limited to your skill, which is 0.

pg. 244

If a character is un-trained, she can still make the test using her own attribute and the device's rating in place of her skill. If the device is hooked up to a patient and left unattended, simply roll the device's rating for any tests.

I would assume since it states that the rating is used in place of your skill, that means the maximum boxes that can be healed in that case is the device's rating.

Though say you have 1 skill and a device rating of 3, would you use the greater of the two? Add both together? or be stuck with your skill as a maximum at a grand 1. Meaning the unskilled would be better off using the Medkit.

Edit:
I know on the same page/ paragraph the medkit adds as a DP modifier to skill, but again if skill is the limiting factor, and the kit is only a DP modifiers, by RAW an unskilled medtech is actually better off using a kit than a low skilled one. o_O

[Redjack]

Drain can't be fixed with anything but time.

But using it to "heal" drain from spells and technomage actions ie Sprite compiling....is at best a grey area.

As for spell/summoning drain, matrix damage and technomage drains, a first aid skill/kit is not good enough, you need a medical skill and or shop/facility.

Drain isn't some sort of mystical life-force sucking, that's Essence Loss which can't be healed by First Aid.

While you all are welcome to house rule this, all the above answers are clearly in conflict with canon.

Can Physical Drain be healed by magic?

No. Damage from Drain must be healed by regular mundane medical care and/or rest.

So back to my original question: How do you define a set of wounds?

[Slymoon]

So back to my original question: How do you define a set of wounds?

Personally I treat it very simply:
The stun track and Physical track are distinct hence a first aid on each one is allowable.
Second a wound is a set of damage. ie: 6 boxes whether it be (6) 1 hit wounds or (1) 6, I count as one wound.
Healing then getting hit again, adding to the boxes is a new set of wounds. ie: heal 4 out of 6 leaves me with 2 boxes. I take an additional 3 after healing bring my total to 5. I now have 5 wounds to heal.

Yes that is very simple and can be manipulated if the GM allows the player. ie: I have 5 boxes after healing, I decide to nick myself for 1 box to heal some more. That is a blatent cheat to try to skirt the easy nature of healing (at least my thoughts on it). I would make the character take a full test and take the full damage.

Yes, that isn't quite realistic since surely somone can decide to nick themselves. However, given the nature of the abstractness of wounds (as I described) I would give them that option.

Suck it up and live with what you have until you take a valid new wound or actually wound yourself full pool and everything.

[WearzManySkins]

@Redjack

Not really Canon but RAW. Previous Canon has been overwritten by RAW of late.

Is Drain a wound? yes drain causes the effects like a bullet but it is not a bullet wound.

How does someone equipped with First Aide know where to the "Band Aide/Dressing" on a drain effect?

Since even magic can not "heal" drain effects but magic can patch a bullet hole..."regular mundane medical care", to me means a medical facility/station, not Billy Ray Boob with a First Aide kit. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

WMS

[WearzManySkins]

@Redjack

Looks to me like you are "Fishing" around for a answer that you want. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

Wonder if you are looking for that answer as a player or a GM? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

WMS

[hyzmarca]

While you all are welcome to house rule this, all the above answers are clearly in conflict with canon.


So back to my original question: How do you define a set of wounds?

MY response mentioned nothing about magical healing and does not conflict with canon. The rule you quoted clearly stated that drain can be healed with mundane medical care. Magic cannot heal drain due to the metaphysical cause of the wound, not its physical form or lack thereof. Technology, dealing with the wound on a purely physical level, can do many things which magic cannot do.

[ArkonC]

In general, I'd say 1 set of wounds is inflicted with 1 roll of the dice.
1 shot = 1 wound, 2 stabs = 2 wounds, 1 burst = 1 wound...
If a wound inflicts 3P and 4S, that would be 1 wound and can only be healed once, if you scored 5 hits on the test, you could remove any damage op to a total of 5, 3P+2S or 1P+4S...
At least that's how I understand it...

[Redjack]

MY response.....

*sigh* These are not the droids you are looking for...

Looks to me like you are "Fishing" around for a answer that you want. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

Wonder if you are looking for that answer as a player or a GM? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Actually both. A conversation with Fisty in his game got me started on the question... but then I became unclear about how to rule in my own games and decided to seek out more information about how other people rule on it. My seeking to stick so close to RAW/Canon is because I run SRM games and the like.

Since First Aid is considered "regular mundane medical care", I will keep with that. I do appreciate your opinion though.

[WearzManySkins]

Cancer is not a wound, nor can First Aide help.

Influenza is not a wound but some first Aide can help the symptoms, but not the base cause.

Drugging someone can cause physical and or stun damage but is not a wound so First Aide has little use directly.

A cardiac arrest is not a wound, and First Aide does not have any real effect on the cause/treament the the cardiac arrest.

Overdosing on a drug is not a wound, but first aide is not a major factor in treatment.

OK post the quote where First Aide is considered "regular medical care". There appears to at least 3 posters here that do not think so.

Drain is a non wound, some cases a assist feedback injury.

Since First Aide treats "wounds" post/quote where it states that Drain is a wound? Yes it is a injury. First Aide does not heal damage it treats heals "wounds".

WMS

[Riley37]

One way to interpret "set of wounds":
All the wounds you've received since the last time someone did First Aid on you.
If you take a box of damage, First Aid it, then take two boxes of damage and First Aid them, you end up with no remaining damage.
If you take a box of damage, then you're too busy to First Aid it, then you take two more boxes of damage, you now have a "set of wounds" totalling 3 boxes. If you then get First Aid with two hits over the threshold, you are left with 1 box that cannot be healed by First Aid.

The combo of First Aid with an R6 medkit, plus a friendly mage with Heal, means that some characters can routinely expect that if they take 4 or 5 boxes of damage in a fight, it will all be healed within minutes afterwards, so completely that their body feels as if those wounds had never even happened.

If a character takes 1 rank in First Aid, then Specialization: Combat Wounds, can they, with 3 hits over the threshold, heal up to 3 boxes of Combat Wound damage? (and same for fixing 3 boxes of twisted ankle damage if they have 1 rank with Specialization: Sports Injuries.)

[ArkonC]

Drain is a non wound, some cases a assist feedback injury.

Since First Aide treats "wounds" post/quote where it states that Drain is a wound? Yes it is a injury. First Aide does not heal damage it treats heals "wounds".

The effort of manipulating mana can exhaust or even injure a magician.

So either it exhausts you and all you need is a sit down and an energy drink or it injures you and you can heal it with first aid...

[Redjack]

Cancer {....} Influenza {....} Drugging {....} cardiac arrest {....} Overdosing..

The third and fifth are dealt with as toxins. There is a full set of rules specifically to deal with that. Those are only relevant to the conversation at hand where/when they cause damage. When they do, First Aid seems to apply.
The first, second and fourth are not really addressed in the game. In the vaguest of terms they are addressed by the Medicine skill.

Medicine {...} It includes the proper treatment of disease and illnesses

OK post the quote where First Aide is considered "regular medical care". There appears to at least 3 posters here that do not think so.

The three posters I saw all posted positions that were effectively disputed with a reference to the FAQ. The remaining tangent that seems to be here now be in question is the definition of "regular medical care".

To me, that is First Aid (within 12 hrs) & Medicine (anytime). In any case, Medkits and Autodocs (BBB, pg244) can serve for either First Aid or Medicine AND can be used even if the character lacks the proper skill. So that seems to fall even within your interpretation, right?

[Whipstitch]

Another reason First Aid can be defaulted is because it has a few uses beyond reducing the number of filled boxes on your condition monitor. It can be used to try stabilizing a dying comrade (although you're likely better off with a trauma patch, a good logic is better than nothing) and can be used to diagnose an illness, which can be a pretty big deal if you've been poisoned with god knows what and need to get a hold of the proper type of Binder 8.


As far as the injuries vs. wounds thing, I'd take it a bit more seriously if chemical burns, sports injuries and electric shock weren't listed as valid specializations for First Aid and if drain wasn't capable of dealing Physical damage. I mean, how narrowly are we defining wounds and injuries here? I mean, if you want to be all nitpicky about it a wound is typically a laceration of some sort, and clearly they haven't limited things that much.