04-18-2015, 11:02 AM | #11 | |||
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Esoteric Medicine
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04-18-2015, 11:34 AM | #12 |
formerly known as 'Kenneth Latrans'
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Wyoming, Michigan
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Esoteric Medicine
Or just do what I do. "High Manual Dexterity adds to Surgery, even though the latter is an IQ-based skill."
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04-18-2015, 12:25 PM | #13 | |
GURPS FAQ Keeper
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Esoteric Medicine
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If you boost Surgery by HMD but not normal DX, then it makes complete DX somehow worse than hands-only DX for surgical purposes. If you boost Surgery by both HMD and (DX minus 10), then you're effectively making DX as good as IQ for Surgery in all aspects, which doesn't seem to be what people are striving to achieve by the changes. Last edited by vicky_molokh; 11-11-2015 at 02:00 AM. |
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04-18-2015, 01:25 PM | #14 |
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Vermont
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Esoteric Medicine
In one campaign I allowed people to use Esoteric Medicine in place of Ritual Magic for the Path of Health only.
I thought about making it IQ/VH as per the recommendation for alternate base skills, but decided that it was balanced by being one path only.
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My ongoing thread of GURPS versions of DC Comics characters. |
11-10-2015, 05:13 PM | #15 |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Esoteric Medicine
Over in the thread for Housekeeping:
This is a style of Esoteric Medicine that is mostly psychology and placebo effect, but that doesn't make it useless. |
11-10-2015, 07:55 PM | #16 |
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Northern Virginia, USA
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Esoteric Medicine
In my game, Esoteric Medicine prevents critical failures with healing spells, just like Physician. That's not what Magic says, but large parts of Magic need a lot of editing to bring them up to 4E.
We rarely actually roll against the skill, because magical healing is so effective. But it's handy for flavor. |
11-10-2015, 08:12 PM | #17 | |
formerly known as 'Kenneth Latrans'
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Wyoming, Michigan
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Esoteric Medicine
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Ba-weep granah wheep minibon. Wubba lubba dub dub. |
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11-11-2015, 12:34 AM | #18 |
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Esoteric Medicine
Regarding Physician in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy: "At TL4 and below, this skill does not exist in most game worlds. Instead, use Esoteric Medicine (p. 192), Pharmacy (Herbal) (above), or both." You will note that Physician is not listed in Suitable Skills (GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 1: Adventurers, pp. 16-18) and does not appear on any Dungeon Fantasy template . . . That's because it's fully replaced by Esoteric Medicine for all purposes, including those in GURPS Magic.
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Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
11-11-2015, 12:52 AM | #19 |
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Esoteric Medicine
In my fantasy campaigns, I've always allowed Esoteric Medicine work at least as well as First Aid on mundane injuries, and permitted different specialties to work in succession to heal a few HP apiece (1d-4 to 1d-2, depending on the setting). If, say, an Ayurvedic healer and a Taoist healer each treat you for 30 minutes, you can get twice as many HP back. That seems fair and balanced for a Hard skill (relative to Easy for First Aid) and extra time.
I also allow Esoteric Medicine to meet certain curses and afflictions in a Quick Contest, with victory lifting the baneful effect. This is entirely dependent on matching the right specialty to the ailment. Having a few versions available is a good idea. Consequently, Esoteric Medicine is moderately popular when I run fantasy campaigns. It's much more popular in "secret history" campaigns where no one has working magic but certain mysterious disciplines (Alchemy, Esoteric Medicine, Herb Lore, etc.) actually work. There, it's a life-saver to have a few healers from different traditions work on your wounds.
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Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
11-11-2015, 01:28 AM | #20 | |
Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: Estonia
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Esoteric Medicine
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Each point your DX is lower thatn the associated DX value penalizes you the same amount. High manual dexterity of course helps, so can appropriate tools, (micromanipulators etc.), It'll mean that high dex and high manual dexterity is still a good thing for surgeons to have - and give good mechanicfor all kinds of storytelling. A good surgeon can fail even easy work because of stress, hangover, post-combat shakes etc. if it penalizes surgeons DX. (Normally a DX 12 would not take any extra penalties to this not so fidgety operation (DX req 10), but he got the shakes (-4 DX so effective DX 8), so he takes an extra -2) |
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Tags |
basic, esoteric medicine, skill of the week |
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