06-30-2022, 10:32 PM | #31 | |
Join Date: Mar 2017
Location: Brazil
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Re: How deadly should infected wounds be, on average?
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By the way, my grandpa was a healer, and I trusted him MORE than I would ANY doctor. Im not just exaggerating or making things up, his healing skills truly were something that I wish I knew how to replicate. So, just by the things that I saw my grandparents do, I'd say that their basically almost tribal medicine was many times BETTER than our TL8 one. And Im no superstitious guy, Im the biggest materialist guy in the world, my grandparents didnt made magic or miracles, but they had a knowledge that modern doctors cant even conceive of. Their herbal skills were absolutely amazing - for example, I could choose to spend a week or two (or more) with the flu, taking useless medicine from the drugstore, or I could choose to take the herbal teas from my dear granny and get better in 2 - 3 days. Im not kidding brother, Im telling the absolute truth. But yeah, all those herbs are native brazilian herbs (that mostly only older people know about), so indeed we DO have some potent herbs indeed. And their healing capabilities is something I have witnessed on several occasions (and so do to the big Pharna) |
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07-01-2022, 07:36 AM | #32 |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: How deadly should infected wounds be, on average?
Herbal remedies can indeed be useful. I wouldn't say that they should typically have a bonus compared to modern medicine, but I wouldn't object to the possibility of sometimes getting very close to - or even matching - the bonus for using modern medicine, for specific use-cases. They probably should be advantaged over common medicines if the infectious agent has developed resistance, however... at least so long as you're using the right treatment! That's for a more-or-less realistic campaign - for cinematic/fantasy campaigns, having herbal remedies be well beyond the best that modern medicine can offer is appropriate, and if you want to make Ginkgo biloba or similar into a sort of athelas-expy, go for it.
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07-01-2022, 09:10 AM | #33 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Austin, TX
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Re: How deadly should infected wounds be, on average?
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Thanks for the additional data.
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07-01-2022, 09:17 AM | #34 | |
Join Date: Mar 2017
Location: Brazil
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Re: How deadly should infected wounds be, on average?
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On the other hand, min-maxers (ie players always) will be sure to pump up their HT |
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07-01-2022, 03:10 PM | #35 | ||
Join Date: Apr 2005
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Re: How deadly should infected wounds be, on average?
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Individualized nursing care could and did make a difference in patient survival, which is why wealthier people commonly hired private nurses. In military settings, the Crimean War (c. 1855) and the U.S. Civil War saw the start of modern, professionalized military nursing. Since it was one of the few ways that respectable women could make a contribution to the war effort, military nurses were generally very smart, dedicated people. When you have sufficient skilled nursing staff, you might get a +1 or better Quality bonus for wound recovery. Quote:
HT 12 is pretty much required for a first-line melee fighter in a low tech game, since it allows greater resistance to Stun and Knockdown, as well as greater FP scores. Hard to Kill and Hard to Subdue are the cheapskate versions of improved HT at 2 CP/lvl. Historically, it's also realistic for successful explorers and fighters to have HT 12+ and possibly traits such as Resistant (Disease). |
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07-01-2022, 03:55 PM | #36 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: How deadly should infected wounds be, on average?
Pretty much any game with combat already heavily incentivizes that. I don't recall the last time I saw a PC with a HT below 11, and looking at DF, the average is 12.18 even if no-one invests in increasing HT.
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07-01-2022, 06:47 PM | #37 | ||
Join Date: Mar 2017
Location: Brazil
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Re: How deadly should infected wounds be, on average?
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Im very thankful I've been borned in this enlightned era of ours (at least until we dont dive head in into WW3) Quote:
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07-01-2022, 09:11 PM | #38 | |
Join Date: Sep 2019
Location: UK
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Re: How deadly should infected wounds be, on average?
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From what I've heard, the reason they're not used more often is more that the dose isn't reliable - the concentration of medicinal substances varies depending on the type of soil, the weather while the plant was growing, etc.. So using the same amount of the same plant won't always get you the same dose. You might get results as impressive as Karl's grandparents got, or you might get a weak mixture that's ineffective - or a mixture so strong it will poison you. A lot of medicinal compounds do have distinctive tastes and/or smells, and though I've no source for this off-hand, it doesn't seem impossible that a really experienced expert could recognise, maybe by the smell, taste and/or colour, how strong a batch was and allow for that, to get the full effect every time. In GURPS terms, that might translate to a critical success on a Pharmacy (Herb Lore) roll getting you a "Superior herbal extract" that was worth a +2 or even more. This is somewhat uncharted scientific territory, so how much of a bonus you could get might be up to the genre or the GM's taste. Another possible explanation, of course, is that it was an infection that was actually caught in the hospital and was resistant to the standard antibiotics they use. In that case, the ginkgo biloba and so on would have been much more effective than those because those were new to it and it had no resistance. Thus the value of having lots of different options! (Drug resistance is actually considered less likely with herbal remedies anyway, because, again, herbal remedies can contain lots of active compounds, making it harder to evolve a defence, while synthetic medicines usually have only one. This gets a lot of interest from scientists trying to develop new antibiotics).
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07-01-2022, 11:28 PM | #39 | |
Join Date: Mar 2017
Location: Brazil
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Re: How deadly should infected wounds be, on average?
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So indeed, bacteria resistance will probably be much less common for herbs used by small numbers of people on localized places than for something widespread over the globe. Also, secondary active principles is very real, which is also why (at least here in Brazil where we have some particularly effictive herbs and teas and ways of using natural medicine) drugs will never be as effective as the plants. Some herbs contain hundreds or even thousands of substances that form secondary active principles that potencialize the overall effectiveness. Oh yes, about the quantity, that's a thing too. G. biloba for example has a special way to have the part of the remedy extracted, you need to carefully remove the viscous substance that exists in the middle of the leafs - that can be used as is, and applied directly on the skin, or can be made into a juice for ingestion. Besides a potent healing for the skin, it can be used to heal ulcers, it can be used even as a food complement! It's rich in several minerals and vitamins; it can also be applied into the hair or skin for beauty treatments. However, the leaves by themselves are toxic, so you have to take care to take the "good stuff" inside without sctraching the leaf And my grandparents could indeed tell basically by instinct how to prepare those, how to have them in the proper dose; that's the difference between a skilled and proficient "herbalist" and someone that herd that something may be good. Granny and granpa new what they were doing, which is result of decades of experience, not just merely smashing plants togheter |
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07-13-2022, 03:21 PM | #40 | |
Careful Wisher
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Oregon, WI
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Re: How deadly should infected wounds be, on average?
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Additionally, one of the ancient civilizations was using Copper surgery instruments, I think which resulted in a much lower infection rate than subsequent iron/metal surgery instruments. Sometimes, even ancient peoples have had good technologies without realizing the underlying microbial reasons for disease. My undergrad degree was in (effectively) medical microbiology, and I was a scientific resource for GURPS Low-Tech, which is where some of this info is from. -P
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