Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post - New Technique of the Week: an ongoing thread

johndallman · 06-29-2017, 01:36 AM

How's this?

Autopsy (Surgery). Hard, default Surgery+6, cannot exceed Surgery+10 (See Bio-Tech, p139). This allows you to buy up skill in the dissection part of an autopsy, which is fairly standardised.

Pathologists, for whom doing autopsies is a routine activity, don't normally have high surgery skill, or do surgery on living patients. Depending on how your game treats specialisations of Surgery, Pathology may be a required specialisation, which covers the entire body, but isn't concerned about keeping the patient alive.

Finding evidence or clues during or after an autopsy usually requires rolls against Diagnosis, Forensics, Physiology and/or Poisons, but Biology (Entomology or Microbiology) is sometimes needed. Lab tests for toxicology are Poisons. Roll against the lower of these skills and the Autopsy technique level; it isn't necessary for all the rolls to be made by the same investigator, provided all the investigators can examine the body, or lab testers have adequate samples. This makes equipment bonuses for Autopsy valuable, see Bio-Tech p127.

This technique is Hard because you only get one try at dismantling a corpse; a "second autopsy" involves another pathologist making new Diagnosis (etc.) rolls, at -1 if the corpse has been frozen or -2 if it has been embalmed (which also gives -3 or worse to further toxicology tests).

06-29-2017, 01:36 AM	#84
johndallman Night Watchman Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Cambridge, UK	Re: New Technique of the Week: an ongoing thread How's this? Autopsy (Surgery). Hard, default Surgery+6, cannot exceed Surgery+10 (See Bio-Tech, p139). This allows you to buy up skill in the dissection part of an autopsy, which is fairly standardised. Pathologists, for whom doing autopsies is a routine activity, don't normally have high surgery skill, or do surgery on living patients. Depending on how your game treats specialisations of Surgery, Pathology may be a required specialisation, which covers the entire body, but isn't concerned about keeping the patient alive. Finding evidence or clues during or after an autopsy usually requires rolls against Diagnosis, Forensics, Physiology and/or Poisons, but Biology (Entomology or Microbiology) is sometimes needed. Lab tests for toxicology are Poisons. Roll against the lower of these skills and the Autopsy technique level; it isn't necessary for all the rolls to be made by the same investigator, provided all the investigators can examine the body, or lab testers have adequate samples. This makes equipment bonuses for Autopsy valuable, see Bio-Tech p127. This technique is Hard because you only get one try at dismantling a corpse; a "second autopsy" involves another pathologist making new Diagnosis (etc.) rolls, at -1 if the corpse has been frozen or -2 if it has been embalmed (which also gives -3 or worse to further toxicology tests). __________________ The Path of Cunning. Indexes: DFRPG Characters, Advantage of the Week, Disadvantage of the Week, Skill of the Week, Techniques.