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Old 11-02-2020, 08:59 AM   #1
Plane
 
Join Date: Aug 2018
Default healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion

I haven't really been able to find rules on how stuff like "there's a bullet in me" would impede healing, what kind of rolls you would use to try and remove things, and if there are any advantages which would just let your body be so good at healing that it pushes that stuff out without needing surgery. Anyone know?
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Old 11-02-2020, 09:12 AM   #2
Aldric
 
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Default Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion

Well... if you want to stop healing, you can use a cyclic attack, with "surgery" as a way to stop the damage.
But I don't know how to make healing or regeneration affect that.

Edit: If you consider surgery as part of that relatively common set of circumstances, but it might very well be for a cyclic attack that deals very little damage daily.
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Old 11-02-2020, 10:53 AM   #3
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Default Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion

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Originally Posted by Plane View Post
I haven't really been able to find rules on how stuff like "there's a bullet in me" would impede healing, what kind of rolls you would use to try and remove things, and if there are any advantages which would just let your body be so good at healing that it pushes that stuff out without needing surgery. Anyone know?
In reality there usually isn't much reason to remove a bullet in and of itself. It's usually just a side-effect of fixing the injuries the bullet has caused. Or put another way, there is no need to remove the bullet, but there is a need to fix the hole it made in your colon...

I have left many bullets and shell fragments in people (until a couple of years ago I was heavily involved in trauma surgery in the Army) who have gone on to live quite happily. Ronald Reagan would have been better off if that little .22 slug had just been left where it was- it was basically only removed to make everyone involved look good.

So leaving a bullet or arrowhead in place won't necessarily impede healing at all, absent an infection or unless it is physically interfering with something like it's stuck in a joint or a tendon or such. This is probably more of a worry for arrowheads, which will probably be much dirtier than a bullet, and are likely to still have a shaft or part of a shaft attached. (You'd have to remove an impaling shaft, obviously, but for other reasons.) Bullets were more of an issue back in the days before antibiotics and when bullets were much larger and thus much more likely to track debris and clothing fragments into the wound with them- see the bullet extraction scene in the film Master and Commander. I'd model such things with a penalty on your roll to avoid infection, and then make the infection incurable until the arrow was removed. But moderns bullets, not commonly.

Mind you, I'm simplifying incredibly. I can of course come up with many situations in which I would/have had to remove all sorts of fragments from people. Larger fragments, in particular. The guy who had an RPG hit blow his rifle's stock and buffer spring into his back comes to mind...

But if I had a bullet in my liver, I would definitely prefer to leave it there. Taking it out would be infinitely more dangerous than ignoring it. Bullets and fragments in muscle, tendon, and other mechanical tissues sometimes get bothersome when they cause scarring and contraction (and thus pain or decreased function) and people will come to you wanting them removed, and that's not as much of an issue. If something like that hurts, I've generally been willing to remove them. But that's not a problem of immediate wound healing. Ones close to a neural structure can cause problems, too.

Anyway, in a modern campaign I wouldn't sweat bullets and fragments much, unless you needed it for some dramatic purpose. Just use the GURPS injury system for deciding if someone needs surgery. It's actually not a terrible system, as I have written elsewhere on this forum many times- see my sig below.

Last edited by acrosome; 11-21-2020 at 07:22 PM.
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Old 11-02-2020, 11:13 AM   #4
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Default Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion

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Originally Posted by acrosome View Post
In reality there usually isn't much reason to remove a bullet in and of itself.
Well, having a bullet left inside of you is a certain amount of damage that can't be healed until the bullet is removed (though it's generally below the resolution of the GURPS game system), so regeneration that involves healing perfectly presumably has a method of getting rid of foreign objects.
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Old 11-02-2020, 11:26 AM   #5
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Default Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion

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Well, having a bullet left inside of you is a certain amount of damage that can't be healed until the bullet is removed ...
Not really. You're just around the bullet. Bodies can remodel to a minimal degree, though there certainly are problems that retained foreign bodies can cause, of course.
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Old 11-02-2020, 12:05 PM   #6
Fred Brackin
 
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Default Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion

[QUOTE=acrosome;2351975

I have left many bullets and shell fragments in people (until a couple of years ago I was heavily involved in trauma surgery in the Army) who have gone on to live quite happily. .[/QUOTE]

In the late 1970s we discovered that my granfather still had some shell fragments in him from WWII. To my knowledge they didn't get removed then either.
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Old 11-02-2020, 12:52 PM   #7
Plane
 
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Default Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion

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Originally Posted by acrosome View Post
Not really. You're just around the bullet.
750 grain bullets weigh more than an ounce, sixteen ounce-bullets in you and that's a pound of non-functional encumbrance ;)

Also kind of an interesting way to get "payload without paying for it" if you end up not removing a ninja-star and later want to pull it out and use it.

There could also be nuisance effects like "sets off metal detectors" or "Magneto will have fun with you" if stuff like that isn't removed.

In which case, distinguishing between healing which can push it out and healing which can't might be interesting.
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Old 11-02-2020, 03:37 PM   #8
johndallman
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Default Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion

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Originally Posted by acrosome View Post
Ronald Reagan would have been better off if that little .22 slug had just been left where it was.
It was, in theory, an explosive bullet (lead azide filling). It hadn't gone off, but having that sitting in the president would surely make people nervous?
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Old 11-04-2020, 01:27 PM   #9
transmetahuman
 
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Default Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion

I've played around with the idea of making straight Regeneration only accelerate natural healing, leaving scars and bones that need to be set quickly. Regrowth would push bullets out. Not sure if that "natural healing only" bit should be a limitation on Regeneration or not.

Edit: I use PK's lower cost for Regrowth.
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Old 11-06-2020, 08:25 AM   #10
Edges
 
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Default Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion

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In reality there usually isn't much reason to remove a bullet in and of itself. It's usually just a side-effect of fixing the injuries the bullet has caused.
Fascinating.

Is lead poisoning not an issue with leaving bullets in people?
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