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Old 07-31-2016, 04:17 AM   #21
vicky_molokh
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Physician and Physiology

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Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
I would expect the exact opposite. Empathy grants supernatural ability to detect that they're not real children but monsters.
They're monster-children. I suppose it was supposed to do both in that adventure (that's aside from the fact that GURPS tends to stay away from Advantages giving problems unless explicitly stated beforehand).
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Old 07-31-2016, 05:02 AM   #22
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Physician and Physiology

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Originally Posted by Tallor View Post
On that note, I'd love to subscribe to a thread where John posts links to every new "Skill of the Week" post!
You mean like this one?

(Not quite perfect because the board's notification feature won't tell you when a post has been changed to add a new skill, only when a new post has been added.)
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Old 07-31-2016, 11:32 AM   #23
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Physician and Physiology

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Originally Posted by RogerBW View Post
You mean like this one?

(Not quite perfect because the board's notification feature won't tell you when a post has been changed to add a new skill, only when a new post has been added.)
Woohoo! :D
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Old 07-31-2016, 11:41 AM   #24
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Physician and Physiology

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Originally Posted by Celti View Post
I've just taken for a new character in a Weird War III (alien/demonic invasion) game an optional specialisation of Physiology I hadn't seen mentioned here: Physiology (Combat).

My group has used this in previous games (and will be in this game, of course) as Physiology focused on harming the target species, rather than the more usual therapeutic uses.
That is interesting, and certainly consistent with things like the Holy Warrior in DF having Physiology as part of the template. Would you be willing to go into more detail? I've never really seen Physiology being used for harming.
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Old 07-31-2016, 12:36 PM   #25
johndallman
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Physician and Physiology

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Originally Posted by RogerBW View Post
You mean like this one?
Roger deserves most of the credit for that thread: he produced the list of links to SotW threads that I used to set it up.
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Old 07-31-2016, 01:41 PM   #26
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Physician and Physiology

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Originally Posted by Railstar View Post
That is interesting, and certainly consistent with things like the Holy Warrior in DF having Physiology as part of the template. Would you be willing to go into more detail? I've never really seen Physiology being used for harming.
The simplest (and most frequent) use is to roll against it to figure out how to do the most possible damage with the weapons you currently have on hand; e.g., does it have a Vitals location? Where are its Vitals? Its Brain? Does it bleed? Is it Unliving or Homogeneous? Does it have any other special weak points? About how much force does it take to chop off a hand/paw/tentacle/proboscis?

Think of it as what you'd get from an anatomy class taught by Marines.
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Old 07-31-2016, 02:40 PM   #27
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Physician and Physiology

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I've seriously considered moving the First Aid default from Physician to Surgery for much that reason, which doesn't exactly solve that RAW (given Surgery defaults to Physician -5) but feels like a step in the right direction...
I've said this before. (Full disclosure- I'm a general surgeon.) It makes much more sense for First Aid to default from Surgery at -0, and from Physician at something like -2 or more, and Physiology (Human) at (at least) -5.

I could even make an argument for GURPS's only positive default, frankly- something like First Aid defaults to Surgery +2 or whatever- if you want to keep the Physician default at -0. Any higher than +2 and it gets ridiculous, though.

Surgeons make awesome first responders. (When they have access to all of their toys...)

But after TL6 or so Surgery should need mandatory specialization, and this would only really apply to General Surgery, Vascular Surgery, Cardiothoracic Surgery and the other subspecialties of General Surgery. Orthopedics would be a little worse, and other Surgery specialties even more so, though still better than the Physician default. Oh, and there possibly should be something like a Surgery (Emergency Procedures) specialty for ER docs, paramedics, etc. that has the better First Aid default, too. None of them would have it at terribly high levels to begin with, though. You'd definitely rather a surgeon opened your chest in the trauma bay than an ER doc, frex.

Last edited by acrosome; 07-31-2016 at 03:08 PM.
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Old 07-31-2016, 03:09 PM   #28
johndallman
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Physician and Physiology

Added to my notes for SotW: Surgery.
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Old 07-31-2016, 03:11 PM   #29
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Physician and Physiology

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Originally Posted by acrosome View Post
But after TL6 or so Surgery should need mandatory specialization, and this would only really apply to General Surgery, Vascular Surgery, Cardiothoracic Surgery and the other subspecialties of General Surgery. Orthopedics would be a little worse, and other Surgery specialties even more so, though still better than the Physician default. Oh, and there possibly should be something like a Surgery (Emergency Procedures) specialty for ER docs, paramedics, etc. that has the better First Aid default, too. None of them would have it at terribly high levels to begin with, though. You'd definitely rather a surgeon opened your chest in the trauma bay than an ER doc, frex.
In GURPS Low-Tech, there is Surgery (Trauma Surgery), which is one level less difficult and avoids the penalty for undiagnosed conditions (at least most of the time). This probably isn't exactly what you have in mind, if only because it's defined in terms of what, say, a Roman legion's medical specialists could do. But it's related, I think.
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Old 07-31-2016, 05:50 PM   #30
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Physician and Physiology

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Originally Posted by vicky_molokh View Post
They're monster-children. I suppose it was supposed to do both in that adventure (that's aside from the fact that GURPS tends to stay away from Advantages giving problems unless explicitly stated beforehand).
I remember an old story from a friend about a DC character who was an assassin who "never learned to speak" but could read lips and body language precisely. However, on their first kill, they saw the fear in their targets eyes and realized what they had done, changing their entire alignment and casting off assassinations for good.

Or something like that.

I imagine that Empathy would actually help against specific monsters (such as Unfeazable undead) because they display no emotional state or display only hostile body language. That's my two cents.
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