healing multiple wounds - is this OK?

[Skarg]

The issue that made it clear to us, was that if you apply healing per combat, then you can still heal every wound individually, as long as a patient can be treated after every injury. But they can't if they get hit a few times and then get healed.

Example:

The party is being stalked as they travel by people taking distant pot shots at them with slings and short bows, who then run away. Most shots miss, but occasionally some hit.

Leif is leading the way and gets hit by an arrow. He retires to the wagon and is treated on the wagon as the group continues.

Leif goes back to the front and gets hit again. He goes back and gets healed.

This continues throughout the day. Leif gets hit six times, and is healed each time, and ends up with almost all of the damage healed at the end of the day.

The party camps, and a sudden barrage hits the camp guards. Olaf is hit six times, though each wound is light just like Leif's were. After the attack, Olaf gets treated, but for some reason, all his wounds get combined into one wound and he gets 1/6th the amount of healing that Leif got for the same sorts of wounds.

In fact, if the injuries are mostly or completely healable one at a time, Leif might be completely healed, or Olaf might only have to be hit two or three times to end up more injured than Leif was by getting hit six times.

It makes sense to me that Olaf would be more in shock than Leif, but if he survived, I'd expect them to end up healing up at about the same rate. No?

[acrosome]

Tracking wounds separately is a very common house rule. I recommend it.

But... the argument for only benefitting from First Aid once in general rather than for each wound is that what you're really treating are symptoms of shock, which is systemic. Keep them warm, etc. And I mean the real-world definition of shock, not what GURPS calls "shock", which is more like stunning or something. A truly regrettable word choice that needs to be fixed in 5e. :)

If you're thinking "But it's stopping bleeding and suturing wounds", well, stopping bleeding is a different GURPS mechanic, and suturing wounds does not magically heal them. (I'm a surgeon.) In the example above Leif had time to recover, drink some fluids, get warm, etc., whereas Olaf bled a lot all at once. So I don't really find that unrealistic.

That all being said, yes, I understand that there will be times that it is unrealistic when you have three wounds in one fight versus one wound each in three separate fights, or whatever. What can I say? It's a game. And though I am a bit of a simulationist I don't go overboard on things that would simply lead to too much complexity to be playable.

[Proteus]

Don’t you need to track separate wounds, at least to the limbs, in order to monitor crippling thresholds? If I take 3 HP to the left arm, and then 3 HP again to the same arm later in the day, that forces (for HT 10) a crippling check, right? “Glomming” (term of art for the day?) the first injury into the general hit-point budget seems to reduce that sort of danger from cumulative injury.

[Mr_Sandman]

Originally Posted by Proteus

Don’t you need to track separate wounds, at least to the limbs, in order to monitor crippling thresholds? If I take 3 HP to the left arm, and then 3 HP again to the same arm later in the day, that forces (for HT 10) a crippling check, right? “Glomming” (term of art for the day?) the first injury into the general hit-point budget seems to reduce that sort of danger from cumulative injury.

The standard rule from the Basic Set is that a single injury has to pass the threshold to cause crippling. Accumulated Wounds causing crippling is an optional rule. (On top of hit locations being optional to begin with)

[Pursuivant]

For natural healing, I'd say that there's no real change in the rate at which wounds HEAL, but there might be a realistic difference in HP LOSS.

From the description of First Aid, it's clear that HP damage in GURPS represents "maximum damage" a wound can do, and that quick response can mitigate some of that damage.

So, if Lief gets slightly wounded for 1 HP each at 8 AM, 10 AM, 12 PM, 2 PM, 4 PM and 6 PM, by 8 PM when the party sets up camp, he's had 2-12 hours to physiologically and psychologically "deal with" each wound. Likewise, for each of those minor wounds, the party medic has had a chance to devote all his attention to just that single minor injury. Each time, Lief gets treated for shock, gets some fluids in him, has someone stop bleeding and treat for infection, and has some time for his body to recover from the shock of being injured.

Overall, he might still be vulnerable to infection or other problems with wound healing, but in terms of his ability to absorb subsequent damage, he's still at full HP.

That would be no different from DR with the Tough Skin limitation where you can still be injured, you just don't suffer as much physical incapacitation from any given injury.

But, if Olaf takes 6 HP of damage from 6 1 HP wounds, his body has to deal with 6 times the injury that Lief suffered all at once. That's going to affect bleeding rates, adrenalin levels, total fluid loss, etc. Meanwhile, the medic has to plug 6 holes instead of just one, so Olaf is bleeding out from the remaining wounds while the medic treats each one in sequence.

Arguably, if multiple medics are working on a patient at once, it should be possible for each medic to restore 1 HP per injury. That would represent quick response to each injury which limits its potential severity.

Likewise, supernatural or ultra-tech treatments which allow medics to treat wounds fast should allow 1 HP or greater to be recovered per wound.

[AlexanderHowl]

It is difficult for multiple medics to work on the same person because there is only so much space (anyway, that is covered under the rules for assistants).

[GWJ]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

For natural healing, I'd say that there's no real change in the rate at which wounds HEAL, but there might be a realistic difference in HP LOSS.

Shouldn't be multiple wounds healing simultaneously?

[Tomsdad]

One thing you can do is of you use the partial injuries rules is have the penalty last until other healing than First aid to treat shock and stop bleeding, would be enough to heal the wound.

This is more tracking though as you have to keep track of how quickly each wound would heal by these methods alone. I would also allow each wound to heal concurrently if I did that. So you go to bed suffering partial injuries penalties from 2x 1hp wounds on an arm and 1x 2hp wound on your leg, and make your HT roll you wake up with only a partial injury penalty from 1x 1hp wound on your leg.


This is more book keeping and means partial injury pensiliates will last longer since you clearing them with first aid rolls! And is probably not suited to campaign where people are fighting and receiving even small wounds day in and day out!

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by Proteus

Don’t you need to track separate wounds, at least to the limbs, in order to monitor crippling thresholds?

Yes, but it's not like that amounts to much work at all.

Originally Posted by acrosome

Tracking wounds separately is a very common house rule. I recommend it.

But... the argument for only benefitting from First Aid once in general rather than for each wound is that what you're really treating are symptoms of shock, which is systemic. Keep them warm, etc. And I mean the real-world definition of shock, not what GURPS calls "shock", which is more like stunning or something. A truly regrettable word choice that needs tone fixed in 5e. :)

If you're thinking "But it's stopping bleeding and suturing wounds", well, stopping bleeding is a different GURPS mechanic, and suturing wounds does not magically heal them. (I'm a surgeon.) In the example above Leif had time to recover, drink some fluids, get warm, etc., whereas Olaf bled a lot all at once. So I don't really find that unrealistic.

That all being said, yes, I understand that there will be times that it is unrealistic when you have three wounds in one fight versus one wound each in three separate fights, or whatever. What can I say? It's a game. And though I am a bit of a simulationist I don't go overboard on things that would simply lead to too much complexity to be playable.

The Advanced Healing System in GURPS Compendium II has you track bleeding for each wound over 2 points of damage, so Olaf's extra bleeding would be accounted for directly that way. There are modifiers to the difficulty of healing each wound for its severity and the victim's remaining HP, and time for first aid is 5 minutes per point (at Tech Level 2-4). Healing is also handled per wound.

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by GWJ

Shouldn't be multiple wounds healing simultaneously?

Yes, but we can consider that more wounds there are, more the rate of recovering becomes low. Thus, when the character makes a daily HT roll to recover, succeeds, and regain 1 HP, all his wounds heal simultaneously but only from a fraction of that HP ...

Note that I perfectly know that it may not be very realistic. I just want to mean that it makes sense. At least, some sense.