Costs of Medical treatment, Help me heal them... Options

[XavTango]

I am trying to determine what the costs are associated with removing a few bullets and patching up a couple runners. they got to a Street doc and had had several boxes of physical damage to heal amongst 3 PCs. Multiple bullets and one guy took a manabolt.

Looking in the Augmentation book (page 122) It lists some medtech providers and their availability and services. It also lists a cost but I have no clue if that is for one wound, one patient no matter the wounds or one visit regardless of how many patients. I may be missing something obvious but I can't seem to find where it says how much it costs. Also, it would stand to reason that a more skilled doc would charge more but I don't see a Doc Rating*X (nuyen) for a service table either.

Anyone have any insight into how this works or maybe some house rules to simplify it?

[Critias]

I'd say the easiest/simplest answer is to call the "cost" column a per-character, per-visit, sort of thing. So going to a Street Doc for basic care costs a character $500, the same visit at a Street Clinic runs you $100, etc.

While it makes sense that a more skilled doc would charge more -- how do the patients know how skilled a doc is, or that they're getting what they're paying for? The guy who's at the bottom of his class at med school still gets called "doctor." I've yet to see a general practitioner hang a sign out front offering a discount because he's bad at his job.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

Basic care assumes a visit to the doctor. Intensive care assumes being hospitalized.
You could perhaps add 5% per point of skill the doctor has and, if you really want to add this kind of "randomness", roll 1d6 and add/subtract 5% of the price as fluctuation, etc.

[Summerstorm]

Meh... just go to sleep in the corner and tomorrow you will be good as new *g*.

Seriously though: Rules for healing are WAY to comfy and nice in SR4. (Yeah, i seen a LOT of people doing the bodx1 rules instead having it bodx2). That is a step in the right direction.

Overall you need to take a lot into account: Did the guys you just sew back together did something high-profile? Costs more. Are they infected by something? Antivenom or antivirals and such should be really expensive (illegal ones). Take their money for everything... they don't want to pay? kick them out in the street. (Runners can't piss their doc off)

If they are legal, have them use bribes and such to keep their wounds a secret. (I guess hospitals and such do record wounds and supply the information to law-enforcement and father-corp.)

Other than that: yeah pay the docs as expensive lawyers...

[Ghremdal]

Huh, I found the rules pretty harsh, especially for those with a average body, if you apply wound penalties to healing tests. The only problem is that medkits give stupidly cheap bonuses to those tests.

For example you have 6P damage. With 3 body, with some cyberware installed (-1), indoors (-1) and wound penalties (-2); gives you a DP of 2. A critical glitch cause 1d3 extra damage. Do you really want to roll extended tests with 2 dice?

I use 200 nuyen per point of P damage, and if the runner has to stay in the hospital apply standard intensive care rates.

[XavTango]

Thanks for the insight.

Is it just me or did SR3 seem a bit more deadly? Or at least harder to heal.

In SR3 I played an adept that was a doctor in his "real" life and had a shop, extracted and implanted cyberware etc etc and of course took care of all the medical issues with the runners but it seemed to cost a shitload all the time (of course I gave the runners a handsome discount) and a ton of downtime for those injured. It seems now that guys heal bullet wounds in a couple of days and are as good as new. Is that how it is supposed to be?

[HunterHerne]

Thanks for the insight.

Is it just me or did SR3 seem a bit more deadly? Or at least harder to heal.

In SR3 I played an adept that was a doctor in his "real" life and had a shop, extracted and implanted cyberware etc etc and of course took care of all the medical issues with the runners but it seemed to cost a shitload all the time (of course I gave the runners a handsome discount) and a ton of downtime for those injured. It seems now that guys heal bullet wounds in a couple of days and are as good as new. Is that how it is supposed to be?

I`ve noticed the same thing. At least about SR4, I never played SR3. I actually apply both slower healing rules, body- wound penalties for Phys. and body or will- wounds for stun. It makes healing more difficult, and many players will dislike not being able to heal on their own, sometimes, but since NPC`s survive many fights in my campaign, it gives players the edge sometimes, too.

Personally, I cut my thumb a few months ago on a knife, and had to go to outpatients to get it stitched up. It shouldn`t take a day or two to heal something that took me almost a week and a half to get completely healed in real life.

[jaellot]

For my gang I did a chart of sorts, since they started a clinic on their own. Anyway, I did the chart based on rows of damage, and to give it some in-game flavor, a street doc contact who actually cares for his patients, gave some suggestions on things to affect the cost. "Stupidly Acquired Injury" was one. Gang related injuries fell into this group. Magical healing at least doubled the base cost. Shadowrun related injuries had a "Silent Service Fee" not as a bribe, but because the runners would generally want something like that. Things like that are part of the biz.

[klinktastic]

With the optional rules, it makes things like symbiotes or the nanotech healing stuff much more valuable if you have to try and heal on your own and not hit up a street doc or hospital.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

With the optional rules, it makes things like symbiotes or the nanotech healing stuff much more valuable if you have to try and heal on your own and not hit up a street doc or hospital.

Or the Rapid Healing adept power.
At our table, we are using all the rules that limit healing, including paying 1% of cyber-bio per month as maintenance cost.

[HunterHerne]

Or the Rapid Healing adept power.
At our table, we are using all the rules that limit healing, including paying 1% of cyber-bio per month as maintenance cost.

Or even just the Quick healer positive quality

[Tyro]

Or even just the Quick healer positive quality

That quality is borderline mandatory in my game for those without the adept power - street level, low power, slow healing, very low magic.

[HunterHerne]

That quality is borderline mandatory in my game for those without the adept power - street level, low power, slow healing, very low magic.

I use a higher magic campaign (I enjoy making a variety of magical NPC`s, so they usually show up more often then they should), but even then I prefer to limit the power of the heal spell, so that it isn`t the go-to way to fix up the injured. I treat the number of boxes attempting to be healed as the spell force, limited as spell force normally is, which prevents it being used to heal many near death characters (this is also a benefit for the PC`s, since, as I mentioned before, many of my NPC`s survive encounters.)

With these limitations, there was an opponent who barely managed to survive the player`s first run, and was put up in a hospital secure wing (under arrest.) Some NPC runners got hired to break him out (successfully, but they had trouble), and one player who had not been previously involved happened to be in the same hospital, trying to talk to a disgraced officer. The PC and another officer who was visiting fought the NPC`s, and lost, but it would`ve been a creaming if the one PC hadn`t still been injured from the original confrontation.