First Aid & Bleeding, A different approach to first aid Options

[Dr Funfrock]

OK, randomly dumping this here.

Was pondering the various "WAAAAAHHHH" threads about SR4A, and the number crunching going on with overcasting.
In particular, I got to thinking that one of the big problems here is the way you can just heal away physical damage, making overcasting less scary than it should be.
Considered various "First aid can't heal drain" fixes, and then found myself thinking "Wait a minute, the problem here is how first aid works".

How often have you found yourself wishing a hit would exceed your armour, because you could just heal away the pysical damage?

The problem here is that first aid is based on a "make it better" mechanic, whereas the systems for dealing with stun damage just make it go away for a while. The practical realities of combat first aid are actually less about making it better, and more about stopping it getting worse.
Now, of course, for us to import that reality into Shadowrun, wounds have to get worse. Luckily, this is something a lot of people have been complaining about anyway, so we're solving a few problems with one rule here.

How do we include wound degredation without it being hideously complicated? Easy. Use the knockdown mechanic.

Any hit which deals a number of boxes of damage (after soak) equal to or greater than the target's body causes knockdown. Now we simply add to that a rule which says that if the attack dealt physical damage, the target is now bleeding.
A bleeding target takes 1 box of unresisted stun damage each round (at the start of their action on the first pass, for easy book keeping) until they are patched up.
To stop bleeding, the person doing First Aid makes a roll, needing a Threshold of 2. We'll say it takes two complex actions.
For simplicities sake, I'm going to say that additional hits causing bleeding (let's call them Serious Wounds) will not add to the rate of blood loss, but will add +1 to the First Aid threshold for each Serious Wound taken, after the first, and an extra complex action to the time taken (obviously if you want your game to be really hardcore, go ahead and have each Serious Wound add another point of stun damage per round as well, and perhaps even have the medic treat each serious wound separately).

Naturally Platelet Factories and that blood circuit thingy will no longer reduce physical damage from wounds. Instead they cause the character to stop bleeding immediately (obviously the target does actually lose some blood, but we're factoring that into the initial damage from the attack. The whole "sucking chest wound" scenario is what they prevent). This makes them work nicely as a "No first aid for me, I'm a street sam" mechanic, for all the lone soldiers out there.

Mechanics wise, we're on pretty solid ground here in terms of playability. Just add a small track next to your Stun and Physical, labelled Serious Wounds. Put a tick on the track each time you take a serious wound. It's not hard, because it happens whenever you take knockdown from physical damage.

What does this rule achieve?

• Since stun damage can be ameliorated with slap patches, it is now considerably less scary than physical damage, which has no cure during combat.
• Wounded characters now have a risk of actually dying if untreated. This deals with a lot of the problems of wounded npcs just sort of sitting around not bothered much by it.
• Since a few bandaids will no longer wish away that physical drain, overcasting becomes slightly less attractive (not a fix, but a complement to other fixes).

This does make First Aid slightly less attractive in terms of raw effect, but still no less vital. In the end, you need a few first aid kits around, because bleeding to death really sucks.

As it stands, I'm leaving magical healing as is. It's freaking magic, so it makes sense that people actually get up going "Wow, I feel so much better". Sooner or later I'll stat up a really cheap "Close Wounds" spell that just stops bleeding. As for Heal: I figure if the mage heals one box of physical damage from the wound that caused the bleeding, that bleeding stops (since magic, like all healing, treats each wound seperately). So if you've taken two serious wounds, you'd have to get healed twice before you stopped bleeding.
Obviously you could always decide to make magical healing less spectacular, by saying that it just functions as a magical version of First Aid. Whatever works for your game.

Anyway, have fun with this, or just ignore it. Whatever works for you.

[TBRMInsanity]

I like it. I use to have a house rule in SR3 where if you took a serious wound you started bleeding and needed to be treated with either the Treat spell (Awakenings sorry don't have the page) or First Aid.

[ornot]

Not bad, although I've not really had a problem with the scenario you describe.

2 points; There is already a spell that could be co-opted to also close wounds - it's called "Stabilise".

Also, I noticed some time ago that the rules for first aid state that the wound boxes healed is limited to the medics skill, but how does that sit with the rules for using a first aid kit unskilled? Surely the lack of skill would prevent any healing from occuring.

[TBRMInsanity]

Also, I noticed some time ago that the rules for first aid state that the wound boxes healed is limited to the medics skill, but how does that sit with the rules for using a first aid kit unskilled? Surely the lack of skill would prevent any healing from occuring.

While it is still possible to do first aid without a first aid kit, it causes lots of complications down the road. People don't heal correctly, you have to maintain pressure on a wound till a make shift pressure band is formed, and of course nothing is properly sterilized leaving the risk of infection. I would not expect an unskilled person without a first aid kit to be able to anything (short of putting pressure on a gashing wound). I would defiantly impose a penalty as a GM on that test.

[Zaranthan]

There is a penalty: you have to default on the test. Heck, the medkit doesn't even NEED an operator, you can just hook it up to somebody and it'll fix them automagically.

[ornot]

It is stated in the BBB... you can only heal a number of boxes equal to your first aid skill. I'd give the direct quote and page number but I don't have my book on hand.

[raggedhalo]

Augmentation changes that limitation to be the higher of your First Aid rating or your Medkit rating, but that's still a pretty strong limitation.

[Draco18s]

How often have you found yourself wishing a hit would exceed your armour, because you could just heal away the pysical damage?

First Aid heals stun too, you know.

[ornot]

Augmentation changes that limitation to be the higher of your First Aid rating or your Medkit rating, but that's still a pretty strong limitation.

Thanks. I must have missed that. Do you have a page ref?

[TBRMInsanity]

First Aid heals stun too, you know.

Don't start that argument again. This thread is about a possible house rule for First Aid, not ways to heal from magical drain.

[Draco18s]

Don't start that argument again. This thread is about a possible house rule for First Aid, not ways to heal from magical drain.

Argument? It's a base supporting fact of his idea (not that I don't like his idea, but he uses "oh, I should overcast so the dude with the medkit can heal me" as supporting evidence, which is untrue).

[raggedhalo]

Thanks. I must have missed that. Do you have a page ref?

Yup. Page 124, Augmentation: "The maximum number of boxes that First Aid can heal is the Rating of the medical equipment or the First Aid skill of the character, whichever is higher."

[raggedhalo]

Don't start that argument again.

There's no argument to restart. Pg. 252, SR4A: "Characters with the First Aid skill may immediately help reduce the trauma of wounds (Stun or Physical)."