Damage - Stabilising without assistance... Options

[Turing]

Hi All,

All questions are regarding Shadowrun 5th...

An issue came up in our last game where a character was shot and pushing into damage overflow. So far, normal, but when I tried to find out how a character would stabilise naturally, without external assistance, and I couldn't

Am I just being blind? I've just read, and re-read the sections, and the basic assumption seems to be that you need outside assistance (Stabilise spell, First Aid, medkit, etc) to stabilise when in overflow. Under that assumption, the human race would not have made it out of the trees.

What am I missing here?

I ruled that the PC in question rall a basic Body test, with a Threshold equal to twice the number of boxes of overflow, in order to stabilise naturally.

Thanks in advance,

Turing

[AquaBlack0B]

You're not missing anything: If a character is bleeding to death and does not receive medical attention, they will die. No death saves. There might be some cyberware in some supplement that averts this, but I don't remember any.

I don't think you made a bad call, though. Plenty of people prefer "less-lethal" games. As a GM, in these situations I'd recommend giving the player some sort of "bad outcome" if they avert death, but that's up to you:
* Captured by corps, bomb implanted in head
* Losing a limb or eye (Let the player choose which one, it's more fun for you if they have to squirm. If it's cyberware, don't break it beyond repair, that stuff's expensive)
* Go into a coma for X days or weeks

You and your players can/should collaborate to come up with "alternatives" to death, if you want a less-lethal game.

[Turing]

Thanks AquaBlack08

This was driving me nuts, because a body MUST be able to stabilise itself, otherwise humanity wouldn't exist.

Not exactly a good call by Catalyst...

Thanks again.

[Lionesque]

Thanks AquaBlack08

This was driving me nuts, because a body MUST be able to stabilise itself, otherwise humanity wouldn't exist.

Not exactly a good call by Catalyst...

Thanks again.

Of course the body can stabilise, but only up to a certain point - and we call everything after that overflow territory. When you are in overflow range, your body has taken more damage that it can sustain, so by rights, you should be dead. And you will be, unless someone else intervenes, and does so quickly. That's kind of the textbook definition of a deadly wound: you may not die right away, but eventually you do.

[Green Eyed Monst...]

I guess everyone The PCs harm until they fall down and quit moving are expected to recover on their own?

Humanity has survived by self stabilizing Light, Moderate - even Serious wounds, but Deadly damage is what eventually get us all. If humanity HAS been self stabilizing Deadly Damage, why is everyone not alive?

[AquaBlack0B]

I guess everyone The PCs harm until they fall down and quit moving are expected to recover on their own?

Humanity has survived by self stabilizing Light, Moderate - even Serious wounds, but Deadly damage is what eventually get us all. If humanity HAS been self stabilizing Deadly Damage, why is everyone not alive?

I suspect it's a D&D-ism. The trouble with that is that hit points in D&D don't always represent "health" or "wounds" the way they do in SR. Conceptually, it's much closer to edge, even though the mechanics aren't that.

Aha! Now I remember- in 5e, you can "burn" a point of edge to avoid death. You lose that edge forever (Or until you rank up in edge again). You avoid death, but still have to deal with the consequences. Burning edge to avoid drowning might be useless, but it could keep you alive long enough to get a bullet wound treated (5-10 minutes? Up to GM).