Maximum skill level by TL

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

No, if you take away his tools and his physician skill, he really isn't any better than a TL 1 guy without tools or physician. You can't do open-heart surgery with your bare hands, no matter what your TL.

No you can't, but even with bare hands there are a ton of things that a higher TL physician can do that a lower TL physician cannot! Look at archaic medical practices that were often completely ignorant of things like infection, or basic anatomy! Most archaic writings on medicine indicate a lack of distinction between blood vessels and tendons, so just what is that TL1 surgeon going to pinch to keep you from bleeding out?

Let's look at the case of the guy with Surgery/TL1 25. He has no anaesthesia (-2) and poor tools (-6), but he still has an effective skill of 17, despite not knowing what most of those things in there do? I am supposed to believe that he is just as competent as a similarly skilled but impaired TL8 surgeon who lacks the tools but knows where everything is supposed to be and where it is and is not safe to cut and how to take care of someone afterwards? This is all knowledge.

Originally Posted by Mailanka

Duh! But this isn't reflected by who has what skill level, but by what information and tools your TL has access too. A guy with rank 20 TL 1 Surgery is just as much a virtuoso of his art, and spends just as many points, as the guy with rank 20 TL 8 Surgery, only the TL 8 surgeon is, obviously, superior.

I agree that he is obviously superior, I think that blaming it all on the tools is ridiculous, and am not sure how to conveniently (from a gaming perspective) differentiate the otherwise difference in (as you put it) knowledge without touching on skill.

Originally Posted by Mailanka

No, they wouldn't. The anathesia and surgical tools we use today are superior to the ones used in, say, TL 5, 6 or 7. Even if you handed those tools to a low TL guy, he still wouldn't know what to do with them: the TL portion of a skill also covers the knowledge of what to do with said tools. The bonus you get from the surgical tools doesn't come because TL 8 scalpels are sharper than TL 1 scalpels, you know.

And those advanced tools primarily come up in reference to extraordinarily complex surgeries - a particularly complex brain surgery may have -15 worth of penalties, and requires a +12 tools bonus to make it reasonable. That the TL5 guy would not know how to use them is why I am not suggesting abolishing the "TL" part of these skills - there is a technology familiarity that goes along with them. But basic competence is far higher than it was a thousand years ago.

Originally Posted by Mailanka

Yeah, it's a tad abstract, but it's still better than your system, which doesn't allow me to play a virtuoso TL 1 surgeon, like Imhotep, and suggests that the reasons TL 8 surgeons are better than TL 1 surgeons is because they're allowed to put more points into their skills. It's really the other way around: the TL 1 surgeon has to work many times harder to even approach what the least competent TL 8 surgeons can accomplish.

Still don't see this, or see where these TL1 virtuoso surgeons have been hiding.

Imhotep was a politician, a priest, an architect, a physician, and an engineer - we're not talking about a guy who dumped a ton of time into medical skills.

For that matter, if you wanted to play some mythic supersurgeon, give him a culture with a medical TL a few levels above the norm and have him be (or study under) the rare innovator who has gone a level or two beyond the current TL max. It would not be skill 25, but like I said I just don't think that is reasonable.

Originally Posted by Mailanka

TL 4 characters still don't have access to Physician, so I assume you mean TL 5. We'll compare TL 5 to TL 8. A TL 5 surgeon has the ability to sterilize his equipment, will use anathesia, and has the Physician skill, but his tools put him at -2 to Surgeon skill. Thus, for complex surgeries, a skill 14 doctor only has an effective skill of 12. He really can't afford to screw around! But the TL 8 doctor has +2 to skill from his tools, giving a skill 14 character an effective skill of 16, which means he can afford to forgo anasthesia and/or sterilization without serious endangering the surgery.

Yes, I meant TL5.

And I am okay with that skill 14 Physician. I am NOT okay with a TL5 skill 25 Physician. How do you accurately determine his chance of success? He can ALSO forgo anaesthesia and sterilization without endangering the patient? Because that seems to be the result.

Originally Posted by Mailanka

Maybe you missed the "Even under optimal conditions, the TL 1 physician is at -11."

No, I did not, but if I allow that physician to have skills in the 20+ range then they are still going to get frequent successes, especially in those areas where they are allowed multiple attempts. This is just not realistic.