Hard to Kill/Mortally Wounded - what exactly happens?

[BraselC5048]

A while back, I had a character (HT 14, Fit, and Hard to Kill 2) who wound up rolling above a 15 on a -4xHP death check, and I wondering how exactly that worked game-rules wise. He was very close to bleeding out to the -5xHP automatic death, and was bleeding from the vitals.

The good news is that it's at the end of a successful starship boarding action, and sickbay, a well equipped as a mass casualty trauma center (as it's a warship) is (let's see, run the math) is 170ish yards away, (plus down 2 and up 1 flights of one story stairs), and crewmen were immediately ordered to "get him to sickbay, fast!" And at sickbay they have multiple operating theaters (+2 quality bonus), ready to go, plenty of blood for transfusions (my character has the advantage of being the blood type of the universal recipient, so anything in the blood bank will work, and at TL 8 + a bit of ^ it's whole blood, as they've found a way to make it keep for 6 months.) Additionally, the surgeons there have minimum skill 14 (fully trained: med school, residency, board certification, than familiarization with starship sickbays - just as good as any hospital planetside), plus every quality bonus to First Aid a full hospital would have. So he can actually reach sickbay just before bleeding out to -5xHP, and at that point whatever medical treatment needed for either mortally wounded or Hard to Kill will happen immediately, with a high chance of success.


Also, he didn't fall unconscious for maybe 10-20 seconds after the point where he should have failed the roll, since I forgot to roll until then! In any case, it was a short 5-8 second firefight where he reached -4xHP, travel 20 feet, see that the bridge has surrendered, and likely at that point the adrenlerline came down, so there's some justification in universe. Also, around that time I was considering a houserule that there's -1 to checks to stay conscious for each -1xHP below 0. I didn't know until a few days ago it was an official rule. Oops. The whole action lasted around 5 minutes, and of course the injury would be spread throughout that, there wasn't much in the first 1-2 minutes, and there would have been a lot of Do Nothing maneuvers while waiting for crewmen to come up, or issuing orders or just plain waiting for something else to happen. Also, my character has HT 14, Fit, and Hard to Subdue 2. (I had calculated it would take about 5 minutes to roll an 18, so I didn't bother rolling. Oops again.)

Also during the hour to stabilize a mortal wound, or alternately while in surgery for Hard to Kill, the GM and another player decided that the (female) 1st lieutenant came in. She asked if he would live, the Doc answered he didn't know, and she kissed him. My character's married, there is no love interest between the two of them, and she thought it would be a fitting gesture to her century's Nelson if he did die. (Sir Thomas Hardy did the same thing while Nelson lay dying below decks.) (Also, this is after having destroyed 2 million tons of shipping in the previous 2 years, and having just possibly saved his country by successfully taking on in a heavy cruiser two battleships,two destroyers and a dozen large freighters carrying both the 1st Guards Corps and the parts and equipment needed to establish a base forward, which is why she considered him another Nelson. (Final score: one battleship carrying the enemy General Staff for the invasion boarded and captured, and the rest destroyed, mostly by getting lucking and disabling them in a gas giant's gravity well, which put it on course to crash into the planet))

My character isn't very well educated, doesn't know who Nelson is, and it's mostly meant as a touching gesture, and something something that will be considered a minor case of "scandalous" that could cause a flap in his career at high level later on.


So I guess I wondering whether he would be mortally wounded as normal, or have the results under Hard to Kill, whether Bleeding would happen (My rule is that making Bleeding rolls stops once you're rushed into surgery and on a couple of trauma lines of IV whole blood), and whether it matters anyway. For what it's worth, I don't remember the exact result of the roll. The only reason it would matter mostly curiosity, and future reference (how does Hard to Kill and Mortally Wounded interact?). It might matter someday, either in this or another campaign. If you have HT 12 and Hard to Kill 2, what happens if you roll either a 14 or 15-16?

[WaterAndWindSpirit]

As far as I know, if you succeed a roll to survive thanks to Hard to Kill (that is, Hard to Kill makes the difference between survival and death/mortal wound), you collapse, apparently dead and as such are automatically unconscious, and someone untrained in medicine might pronounce you dead, but anyone with even one rank in any medical skill who bothers checking you up will tell you're still alive. Aside from that, you survive normally. And IIRC, you can stop bleeding with a 1st aid roll, and a transfusion would give a TL based bonus AND be a routine check.

[NineDaysDead]

HT 14, Fit, and Hard to Kill 2
3-15 Alive and maybe conscious.
16 Alive and unconscious.
17 Mortally Wounded
18 Dead

HT 14, Fit, and Hard to Subdue 2
0HP or less
3-16 Conscious
17-18 Unconscious

-1XHP or less
3-16 Conscious
17-18 Unconscious

-2XHP or less
3-15 Conscious
16-18 Unconscious

-3XHP or less
3-14 Conscious
15-18 Unconscious

-4XHP or less
3-13 Conscious
14-18 Unconscious

HT 12 and Hard to Kill 2,
3-12 Alive and maybe conscious.
13-14 Alive and unconscious.
15-16 Mortally Wounded
17-18 Dead

He would be bleeding no matter what, until he made his HT roll to stop bleeding, or got treatmeant

[BraselC5048]

Originally Posted by WaterAndWindSpirit

As far as I know, if you succeed a roll to survive thanks to Hard to Kill (that is, Hard to Kill makes the difference between survival and death/mortal wound), you collapse, apparently dead and as such are automatically unconscious, and someone untrained in medicine might pronounce you dead, but anyone with even one rank in any medical skill who bothers checking you up will tell you're still alive. Aside from that, you survive normally. And IIRC, you can stop bleeding with a 1st aid roll, and a transfusion would give a TL based bonus AND be a routine check.

Not from the vitals, you can't (if using High Tech or Martial Arts, and he is hit in the vitals), for that you need surgery, which luckily is ready and available very close by. The rest of the (many) wounds would either take First Aid or Surgery (likely First Aid followed a few minutes later by Surgury to remove the bullet and properly repair the damage, likely going on at the same time as the main operation (good thing the Imperial Navy decided to nearly double medical compliment a few decades ago! Makes this type of thing, and handling high volume, easier, even if the officers have to double up, and the enlisted now have to have be surgeons rather than simply nurses or assistants, although only skill-12, perhaps.).

Originally Posted by NineDaysDead

HT 12 and Hard to Kill 2,
3-12 Alive and maybe conscious.
13-14 Alive and unconscious.
15-16 Mortally Wounded
17-18 Dead

Simple enough, assuming "alive and unconcious" means per Hard to Kill.

Originally Posted by NineDaysDead

HT 14, Fit, and Hard to Subdue 2
0HP or less
3-16 Conscious
17-18 Unconscious

So that's since a 17 is always a failure?

Originally Posted by NineDaysDead

HT 14, Fit, and Hard to Kill 2
3-15 Alive and maybe conscious.
16 Alive and unconscious.
17 Mortally Wounded
18 Dead

Don't fully understand the logic here. I take it 18 is dead as it's a critical failure, but I don't understand why 16 is per Hand To Kill and 17 is Mortally Wounded. I 'think' I rolled a 17 though, so I got what I wanted.

Originally Posted by NineDaysDead

He would be bleeding no matter what, until he made his HT roll to stop bleeding, or got treatmeant

Agreed there.

On another subject - what's the total quality/equipment bonus for a hospital? First Aid gets +1 for Hemostatic Bandages and +2 for a crash kit. Since a portable surgery gives +2 to first aid, but nothing is listed for that for an operating theatre, does the operating theatre still give +2, for +5? Or is "a whole hospital" simply count as "the best possible equipment for the TL," giving +4 in this case to First Aid. (Starships, sure, but still mostly TL 8, even on the starship itself.) Does the +2 for a TL8 surgical kit stack with the +2 for an operating theatre, for +4 total, or are their modifiers for different cases (so presumably a surgical kit would be at a penalty for what an operating theater gives a bonus for)? I presume the last case?

For that matter, if First Aid 14 and +4 quality means skill-18, is any roll that succeeds by 10 or more a critical success? (NOT in combat.) For this case, 8 or less, a full 25% of the time? Not according to the rulebook, but passing a roll by 10 or more is pretty much unheard of anyway. Perhaps allow it (restoring maximum possible HP - 6 HP) in this case only. Also, can you apply First Aid and treating shock for each wound (up the the wound's actual injury, of course), or is treating shock a "once per patient" deal?

In this case, particularly if it can be done for each wound, it would be done over a few hours once all the casualties have been initially treated, and nobody else needs any higher level of care.

[WaterAndWindSpirit]

I believe a full hospital was what they described as their example of "Best possible equipment for a given TL".

Photographic memory (mitigator: only applies to thing one is passionate about, -10%) is a wonderful advantage... :P

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by BraselC5048

Don't fully understand the logic here. I take it 18 is dead as it's a critical failure, but I don't understand why 16 is per Hand To Kill and 17 is Mortally Wounded.

16: you succeeded, but hard to kill made the difference between success and failure, so the effects per hard to kill.
17: failure, so HTK has no effect. Your degree of failure isn't actually well defined here, but it's either a failure by 1 (since 16 succeeds) or 0 (since your roll is 17). A failure by 1 is a mortal wound, a failure by 0 kills you. I'd call it a failure by 1.
18: per the above logic, your degree of failure is 2 (mortal wound), but it's also critical failure (undefined Bad Stuff), and calling the undefined bad stuff 'actually dead' seems pretty legitimate.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by BraselC5048

On another subject - what's the total quality/equipment bonus for a hospital? First Aid gets +1 for Hemostatic Bandages and +2 for a crash kit. Since a portable surgery gives +2 to first aid, but nothing is listed for that for an operating theatre, does the operating theatre still give +2, for +5? Or is "a whole hospital" simply count as "the best possible equipment for the TL," giving +4 in this case to First Aid. (Starships, sure, but still mostly TL 8, even on the starship itself.) Does the +2 for a TL8 surgical kit stack with the +2 for an operating theatre, for +4 total, or are their modifiers for different cases (so presumably a surgical kit would be at a penalty for what an operating theater gives a bonus for)? I presume the last case?

For that matter, if First Aid 14 and +4 quality means skill-18, is any roll that succeeds by 10 or more a critical success? (NOT in combat.) For this case, 8 or less, a full 25% of the time? Not according to the rulebook, but passing a roll by 10 or more is pretty much unheard of anyway. Perhaps allow it (restoring maximum possible HP - 6 HP) in this case only. Also, can you apply First Aid and treating shock for each wound (up the the wound's actual injury, of course), or is treating shock a "once per patient" deal?

In this case, particularly if it can be done for each wound, it would be done over a few hours once all the casualties have been initially treated, and nobody else needs any higher level of care.

There are multiple modifiers, and they stack, but for the fact that you can only ever have one instance of a TL modifier and one instance of a Quality Modifier. So you get +2 for TL8, and +2 for a (non-specialised) Operating Theatre, total +4. You can't stack a fine kit with a good theatre, though.

You will find following also of interest:
Assistants: +1 per assistant with Physician, Surgery, or
(if appropriate to the equipment used) Electronics
Operation (Medical) at 12+; +2 for skill 15+. Maximum
bonus is +6.

First Aid should apply against the whole combat, otherwise you get silly things like healing 30 HP if they've been caused by a shot of 30 shotgun pellets.

[BraselC5048]

Err, where does the +2 for TL 8 for the Surgery skill come from? I get the operating theatre bonus, but not the TL one. And yep, Basic defines a hospital as "the best possible equipment for the TL" explicitly in the description for what that means!

EDIT: Or is the +2 for a TL 8 surgical kit the actually a TL modifier? I guess that explains it. Thing is, it's not fully as the description says in that it does not have single use disposable cutting surfaces, rather solid reusable ones. That's due to extended length away from supply (in my starship, anyway. Doesn't apply anywhere else.) Still likely counts as +2.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by BraselC5048

Err, where does the +2 for TL 8 for the Surgery skill come from? I get the operating theatre bonus, but not the TL one. And yep, Basic defines a hospital as "the best possible equipment for the TL" explicitly in the description for what that means!

EDIT: Or is the +2 for a TL 8 surgical kit the actually a TL modifier? I guess that explains it. Thing is, it's not fully as the description says in that it does not have single use disposable cutting surfaces, rather solid reusable ones. That's due to extended length away from supply (in my starship, anyway. Doesn't apply anywhere else.) Still likely counts as +2.

Comes from here:

Originally Posted by BIO138

Equipment: Basic equipment gives -6 at TL1, -5 at TL2-
3, -4 at TL4, -2 at TL5, and +(TL-6) at TL6+. TL5+ surgery
assume that anesthesia (p. 135) is available. If not, apply a
-2 penalty to skill. Use of less sophisticated anesthesia may
have other penalties (see Anesthesia Equipment, p. 135).
Additional quality modifiers apply for better equipment;
see the surgical equipment, below.

[NineDaysDead]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

There are multiple modifiers, and they stack, but for the fact that you can only ever have one instance of a TL modifier and one instance of a Quality Modifier. So you get +2 for TL8, and +2 for a (non-specialised) Operating Theatre, total +4. You can't stack a fine kit with a good theatre, though.

Would "Trauma Surgery" be a valid specialization? If it would, then it's probably the type of surgery most likely to be found on a warship. That would allow +2 for TL8, and +4 for a (specialised) Operating Theatre, total +6, throw in a +6 for Assistants and you're looking at +12. Assuming the surgeon has a base skill of 14, that's 26, -4 because the patient is at -4XHP or worse, that's 22, if the patient is on life support they only have to roll to not die once per day. That gives:

1st roll: 16 or less = success (less time -6; time 24 minutes); failure = try again.
2nd roll: 16 or less = success (less time -4; time 36 minutes); failure = try again.
3rd roll: 16 or less = success (less time -2; time 48 minutes); failure = try again.
4th roll: 16 or less = success (less time +0; time 60 minutes); failure = try again.
5th roll: 16 or less = success (More time +2; time 4 hours); failure = try again.
6th roll: 16 or less = success (less time +4; time 15 hours); failure = try again.

Total time 21 hours 48 minutes. odds of failing all 6 rolls = (4/216)^6 =0.0000000040330856120518700000%

It's worth noting that with HT14 + Fit + Hard to Kill 2, his Mortal wound survival roll is 16 or less that means:

6 or less: Stabilise
7-16: Alive but keep rolling
17 or more: Die

What that means:

Originally Posted by NineDaysDead

HT 16+
Rolls___ Okay__________ ____ Still-Mortal______ ____ Dead
1 _______ 9.2592592593% ____ 88.8888888889% ____ 1.8518518519%
2 _______ 17.4897119342% ____ 79.0123456790% ____ 3.4979423868%
3 _______ 24.8056698674% ____ 70.2331961591% ____ 4.9611339735%
4 _______ 31.3087435858% ____ 62.4295076970% ____ 6.2617487172%
5 _______ 37.0892535578% ____ 55.4928957307% ____ 7.4178507116%
6 _______ 42.2274846440% ____ 49.3270184273% ____ 8.4454969288%
7 _______ 46.7948011650% ____ 43.8462386020% ____ 9.3589602330%
8 _______ 50.8546380726% ____ 38.9744343129% ____ 10.1709276145%
9 _______ 54.4633819904% ____ 34.6439416115% ____ 10.8926763981%
10 _______ 57.6711543619% ____ 30.7946147657% ____ 11.5342308724%
11 _______ 60.5225075809% ____ 27.3729909029% ____ 12.1045015162%
12 _______ 63.0570437756% ____ 24.3315474692% ____ 12.6114087551%
13 _______ 65.3099648376% ____ 21.6280421949% ____ 13.0619929675%
14 _______ 67.3125613371% ____ 19.2249263954% ____ 13.4625122674%
15 _______ 69.0926471145% ____ 17.0888234626% ____ 13.8185294229%
16 _______ 70.6749455832% ____ 15.1900653001% ____ 14.1349891166%
17 _______ 72.0814331110% ____ 13.5022802668% ____ 14.4162866222%
18 _______ 73.3316442468% ____ 12.0020269038% ____ 14.6663288494%
19 _______ 74.4429430342% ____ 10.6684683589% ____ 14.8885886068%
20 _______ 75.4307641786% ____ 9.4830829857% ____ 15.0861528357%
21 _______ 76.3088274180% ____ 8.4294070984% ____ 15.2617654836%
22 _______ 77.0893280753% ____ 7.4928063097% ____ 15.4178656151%
23 _______ 77.7831064373% ____ 6.6602722753% ____ 15.5566212875%
24 _______ 78.3997983146% ____ 5.9202420225% ____ 15.6799596629%
25 _______ 78.9479688722% ____ 5.2624373533% ____ 15.7895937744%
26 _______ 79.4352315901% ____ 4.6777220918% ____ 15.8870463180%
27 _______ 79.8683540061% ____ 4.1579751927% ____ 15.9736708012%
28 _______ 80.2533517091% ____ 3.6959779491% ____ 16.0506703418%
29 _______ 80.5955718896% ____ 3.2853137325% ____ 16.1191143779%
30 _______ 80.8997676055% ____ 2.9202788734% ____ 16.1799535211%
31 _______ 81.1701637975% ____ 2.5958034430% ____ 16.2340327595%
32 _______ 81.4105159682% ____ 2.3073808382% ____ 16.2821031936%
33 _______ 81.6241623421% ____ 2.0510051895% ____ 16.3248324684%
34 _______ 81.8140702300% ____ 1.8231157240% ____ 16.3628140460%
35 _______ 81.9828772415% ____ 1.6205473102% ____ 16.3965754483%
36 _______ 82.1329279183% ____ 1.4404864980% ____ 16.4265855837%
37 _______ 82.2663062978% ____ 1.2804324427% ____ 16.4532612596%
38 _______ 82.3848648573% ____ 1.1381621713% ____ 16.4769729715%
39 _______ 82.4902502435% ____ 1.0116997078% ____ 16.4980500487%
40 _______ 82.5839261424% ____ 0.8992886291% ____ 16.5167852285%
41 _______ 82.6671936080% ____ 0.7993676703% ____ 16.5334387216%
42 _______ 82.7412091331% ____ 0.7105490403% ____ 16.5482418266%
43 _______ 82.8070007109% ____ 0.6315991469% ____ 16.5614001422%
44 _______ 82.8654821134% ____ 0.5614214639% ____ 16.5730964227%
45 _______ 82.9174655823% ____ 0.4990413013% ____ 16.5834931165%
46 _______ 82.9636731102% ____ 0.4435922678% ____ 16.5927346220%
47 _______ 83.0047464683% ____ 0.3943042381% ____ 16.6009492937%
48 _______ 83.0412561200% ____ 0.3504926560% ____ 16.6082512240%
49 _______ 83.0737091437% ____ 0.3115490276% ____ 16.6147418287%
50 _______ 83.1025562759% ____ 0.2769324690% ____ 16.6205112552%
51 _______ 83.1281981711% ____ 0.2461621946% ____ 16.6256396342%
52 _______ 83.1509909669% ____ 0.2188108397% ____ 16.6301981934%
53 _______ 83.1712512299% ____ 0.1944985242% ____ 16.6342502460%
54 _______ 83.1892603525% ____ 0.1728875770% ____ 16.6378520705%
55 _______ 83.2052684615% ____ 0.1536778463% ____ 16.6410536923%
56 _______ 83.2194978917% ____ 0.1366025300% ____ 16.6438995783%
57 _______ 83.2321462741% ____ 0.1214244711% ____ 16.6464292548%
58 _______ 83.2433892807% ____ 0.1079328632% ____ 16.6486778561%
59 _______ 83.2533830643% ____ 0.0959403229% ____ 16.6506766129%
60 _______ 83.2622664275% ____ 0.0852802870% ____ 16.6524532855%

With an effective score of 16 even if they don't bother with any medical treatment beyond stopping the bleeding, he will probably still pull through all by himself. With Medical treatment the odds against death are so remote that you probably shouldn't be rolling any more than you would roll for being struck by lightning. It's less that 1 in 100 billlion!