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Old 09-06-2017, 09:24 AM   #41
martinl
 
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Default Re: Surgery - How does it work?

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Originally Posted by sir_pudding View Post
IME most GURPS games use Crippling rules for limbs and Mortal Wounds, since these are just part of the injury system, but if you have magical or ultra-tech healing you often explicitly avoid needing Surgery to heal these.
IME combat-time crippling happens to PCs sometimes, short term crippling is rare, and long term crippling or dismemberment are very rare. Similarly, I have seen the mortal wound rule used exactly once, on an NPC henchmen.

This is almost certainly a game style thing, but not because the games I am in shy away from harming PCs (I've seen plenty of PC death), but because they shy away form complexity. There's a lot of "NPCs usually target the torso" going on in my neck of the woods.
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Old 09-06-2017, 10:15 AM   #42
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Default Re: Surgery - How does it work?

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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
Hmm. I like the concept but it seems too harsh at low TL where thoracic surgery would be little more than a gruesome form of homicide. No chance at all of pulling through a Vitals wound without severely compromised health seems too much.
I am challenged to imagine how someone at a low TL would fully recover from an arrow through a lung, heart, or liver. Live, yes (even the heart, statistical abnormalities happen) but be as good as new... never gonna happen.

That's harsh for PCs, which is why this is a Harsh Realism rule and not the default :)
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Old 09-06-2017, 10:32 AM   #43
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Default Re: Surgery - How does it work?

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Originally Posted by PK View Post
Because surgery fixes problems. It just happens to fix problems other than "low HP." More surgical rules can be found in GURPS Bio-Tech, and additional books have suggested the optional rule that a Surgery roll is required to stop bleeding from the skull, eye, neck, vitals, or veins/arteries (if you use the latter hit location).

In addition, you may want to use an optional rule (from an article by Eric Funk) which was considered during the Bio-Tech playtest. (It didn't make it in, but I've used it frequently enough that I often forget that!) Basically, treat the extra injury from the vitals wounding multiplier as inherently unhealing; e.g., if you take 3 penetrating damage to the vitals, which becomes 9 HP of injury, the first 3 HP are normal but the remaining 6 HP are unhealing. Then the Surgery skill can be used to convert (margin of success + 1) of those HP to normal injury. It's harsh, but realistic. (Note that, even with this rule, the Surgery skill is only used to facilitate healing, not to recover HP directly.)
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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
That'd do it, interesting...

Hmm. I like the concept but it seems too harsh at low TL where thoracic surgery would be little more than a gruesome form of homicide. No chance at all of pulling through a Vitals wound without severely compromised health seems too much.

Perhaps treating the HP as crippled rather than guaranteed unhealing? Though that probably needs some tweaking back in the other direction, a basic crippling roll is pretty generous...
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Originally Posted by Bruno View Post
I am challenged to imagine how someone at a low TL would fully recover from an arrow through a lung, heart, or liver. Live, yes (even the heart, statistical abnormalities happen) but be as good as new... never gonna happen.

That's harsh for PCs, which is why this is a Harsh Realism rule and not the default :)


I think your first problem with Vitals wounds at lower TLs is not bleeding out, since if you use the MA rules you need surgery to try and stop bleeding. Otherwise you are relying on making 3x HT rolls in a row at at least -4 (and given the 3x wound multiplier likely worse than -4).

So really your probably undergoing surgery anyway just to make it long enough to worry about long term healing.
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Old 09-06-2017, 10:59 AM   #44
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Default Re: Surgery - How does it work?

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Originally Posted by Tomsdad View Post
I think your first problem with Vitals wounds at lower TLs is not bleeding out, since if you use the MA rules you need surgery to try and stop bleeding. Otherwise you are relying on making 3x HT rolls in a row at at least -4 (and given the 3x wound multiplier likely worse than -4).

So really your probably undergoing surgery anyway just to make it long enough to worry about long term healing.
Realistically, a patient before the nineteenth century would not be expected to survive internal surgery.
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Old 09-06-2017, 11:54 AM   #45
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Default Re: Surgery - How does it work?

I'm making allowances for those people historically who have rolled amazing strings of critical successes on their HT rolls.

The case history that sticks out to me is Alexis St. Martin who got shot in the stomach by a musket at close range in 1822 and lived - but "healed" with an open hole into his stomach (a gastric fistula). The doctors didn't have much to do with his living and healing, as expected in 1822.
That was all very interesting to his doctor, who got to study human digestion in a living human by sticking things in through the hole in his side, but not so great for Alexis.
He lived for another 20-odd years before dying after slipping on icy steps.
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Old 09-06-2017, 12:08 PM   #46
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Default Re: Surgery - How does it work?

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I'm making allowances for those people historically who have rolled amazing strings of critical successes on their HT rolls.
Sure, that's why I said "would not be expected." A critical success (or a critical failure) is by definition not the expected result. "The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet."
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Old 09-06-2017, 12:16 PM   #47
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Default Re: Surgery - How does it work?

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Originally Posted by Bruno View Post
I am challenged to imagine how someone at a low TL would fully recover from an arrow through a lung, heart, or liver. Live, yes (even the heart, statistical abnormalities happen) but be as good as new... never gonna happen.

That's harsh for PCs, which is why this is a Harsh Realism rule and not the default :)
As good as new might never happen (I'm not sure 'as good as new' is realistic even with modern care, though the difference might get below GURPS resolution) but the way this stands any sizable wound means the character is going to be at half move and dodge forever, no chance at all to escape that.
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Originally Posted by Tomsdad View Post
I think your first problem with Vitals wounds at lower TLs is not bleeding out, since if you use the MA rules you need surgery to try and stop bleeding. Otherwise you are relying on making 3x HT rolls in a row at at least -4 (and given the 3x wound multiplier likely worse than -4).

So really your probably undergoing surgery anyway just to make it long enough to worry about long term healing.
It depends a lot on where your HT before the penalty is. At 10, your chances of not bleeding out with that sort of penalty are rather bad (though you've always got crit-fishing). 12+, you've got a real possibility of pulling through.
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Old 09-06-2017, 12:24 PM   #48
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Default Re: Surgery - How does it work?

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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
As good as new might never happen (I'm not sure 'as good as new' is realistic even with modern care, though the difference might get below GURPS resolution) but the way this stands any sizable wound means the character is going to be at half move and dodge forever, no chance at all to escape that.

It depends a lot on where your HT before the penalty is. At 10, your chances of not bleeding out with that sort of penalty are rather bad (though you've always got crit-fishing). 12+, you've got a real possibility of pulling through.
Real recovery from crippling or even "just" severe injury is like aging. Reality is too depressing to ever model entirely accurately. It's also a bit too random and dependent on too many variables to get more than near the ballpark.
That which doesn't kill you may sometimes make you stronger emotionally, but that's it.

Though there have a few cases of women performing their own caesareans and living. So reality can be pretty wonky at times.
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Old 09-06-2017, 12:28 PM   #49
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Default Re: Surgery - How does it work?

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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
As good as new might never happen (I'm not sure 'as good as new' is realistic even with modern care, though the difference might get below GURPS resolution) but the way this stands any sizable wound means the character is going to be at half move and dodge forever, no chance at all to escape that.
You say this as if it were a bad thing.
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Old 09-06-2017, 12:36 PM   #50
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Default Re: Surgery - How does it work?

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You say this as if it were a bad thing.
Yes, I do.
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