Revised/Expanded house lrules for CPR

[Bustard McDastard]

I decided to make house rules for CPR that are supposed to be gritty and non cinematic.

First, I treat CPR as a separate skill which is IQ Hard. As in real life, a 4 hour intensive CPR course with a skilled instructor is sufficient to give you basic knowledge of CPR and AED (automated defibrillator) use. (1 point, or IQ-2 level). Further skill improvements require the usual 200 hours of practice per point.

CPR defaults to Physician -2 at TL6 and up and to First Aid -2 at TL7 and up.

If you are completely untrained and are at TL8+, you can roll IQ-6 based on your exposure to people doing CPR in tv and movies.

If you are completely untrained below TL7, you have to roll Esoteric Medicine at -4 to attempt resuscitation. But esoteric medicine does not allow you to use a defibrillator at all! (more on that below)

Roll against Diagnosis or CPR at +4 to recognize someone as being in trouble and requiring CPR.

Roll against CPR to attempt resuscitation. If you have an AED (automated defibrillator) you are at +4 to skill. At TL8 AEDs come with voice instructions that tell you how to use them, so you can use one even at default.

If you succeed, after one minute of CPR, the patient rolls against HT at -4. They get your margin of success on your CPR roll as a bonus to this roll, up to a maximum possible bonus of +6 on a margin of success of 6.

If they succeed, they are no longer in cardiac arrest. If they fail, you can roll CPR again, and they can roll against HT-4 again in one minute.

This reflects that the success rate for CPR is relatively low. If you have a cardiac arrest, your odds are not good. But they are better if you receive CPR with an AED/defibrillator.

Two extra rules:


1: *CPR is physically demanding*

If the patients ST is 10 or above, CPR has a strength requirement of 10. If your ST is below 10 you have a penalty to CPR equal to (10 minus [your ST].)

If the patients ST is below 10, the ST requirement is equal to the patients ST. You have penalty to CPR for every point your ST is below the patients ST.

2: *CPR is exhausting*

Every minute of CPR costs 4 FP. In hospitals, they often rotate between CPR givers every minute or so.