NPC skill levels that are highly relevant for PCs

[vicky_molokh]

Greetings, all!

Yesterday, two characters (PCs) got into a hospital due to sustaining 9 and 5 injury respectively. Aid from the paramedics restored 4 to the former and 3 to the latter, leaving 5 and 2 HP missing respectively.

The hospital was decent, so I deemed that the controlling skill (Physician) of the relevant NPCs was no less than 12, likely 14. All rolls were successes, resulting in a very quick recovery (2 rolls per day, being TL9).

Now, while one side of this story illustrates the superiority of GURPS medicine to that of the real world, ;)
the other point I'd like to examine is the level of NPCs' skills that are relevant to the PCs.

The default assumption is that a non-risky professional should have 12ish, while a risky one around 14ish. Then there's the equipment modifier set. It seems that +2 is not exactly implausible for a well-equipped hospital.

Other skills that may be of great interest when used by friendly NPCs: investigative skills of hired private eyes, Mechanic skills of a starport crew, professional skills of librarians when PCs need to perform research, Forgery skill of an NPC selling fake documents, Teaching skill of hired tutors (though the effects are somewhat fuzzy), gunsmith's skill when PCs want to modify their weapons (this one is brutal), perhaps the skill of whoever performs fire support (again, fuzzy).

What's your experience with 'nameless' or 'minor' NPC skills being highly relevant to the campaign?

Thanks in advance!

[digoraccoon]

In an old Warehouse 23 campaign, the party began utilizing alien gadgets on their adventures and would often come back with them damaged. So they hired an alien mechanic with relevant repair skills between 12-14, depending on the device to be repaired.
The Warehouse garage had a decent selection of tools for the alien, but a lot of it was either a bit outdated or in need or repair itself so often she'd only get at most a +1 bonus to her skill. As the campaign moved on she got better tools.

[Layander]

I mostly run medival, but I try to jumble people into skill levels based on something familiar to me, Apprentice have about a 10, journeymen have about 12, masters have about a 14, and guild masters or gransmasters have about about 16.

[Desthro]

I've found that any support skill really changes the way the campaign takes shape. A real fun one: Propaganda.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by Layander

I mostly run medival, but I try to jumble people into skill levels based on something familiar to me, Apprentice have about a 10, journeymen have about 12, masters have about a 14, and guild masters or gransmasters have about about 16.

On the last skill level, be careful of assigning proficiency levels to administrative ranks. At some point, advancement in any organization starts to shift from "doer" skills to "leader" skills, and in most guilds that starts to happen at or shortly after "Master". I would not normally expect (for instance) the guild master to be the best craftsman in any but the smallest guilds. If there are enough guild members that running the guild is a significant time expenditure then the guild will be run by guys who got up to some qualifying skill level (whatever Master takes in that guild, usually) and then started to devote more and more time to Administration, Leadership, Politics, and other such skills.

I would also consider that the size of the guild and its role in society will skew some or all of these thresholds - I could see master at anywhere from 14-16 easily, and some guild leaders will have skills and abilities on par with some high nobles.

[Lamech]

I would recommend requiring the appropriate rolls for finding someone with good skills if its not something well licensed and standardized. Sure for a well regulated hospital the doctors are going to have their specialties at 14+, and the nurses at 12+. But if you are going to a back street implant dealer, and IQ roll (or appropriate skill substitution) is called for. Failure... would be bad.

In general for regulated, or up-and-up type professions, 12ish for general professionals, 14ish for highly trained professionals (good grad school/professional school types) and 16ish for the upper crust of the highly trained (surgeons for example). Sometimes it will be pretty trivial to figure out where people are slotted into: nurse, doctor of family medicine, surgeon*. Other times it will take a skill roll (hiring an engineer, or finding a top tier lawyer)

Non-up and up types you'll have a similar spread, but its a heck of a lot harder to find the higher types, there will be less of them AND their will be people who are plain shoddy. (Don't take proper precautions, cut corners and/or have low skill)

*Note despite me using these as examples, they aren't specialized in the same thing IRL. Nurse has a good physician (nurse) score, a family practitioner probably has diagnosis as his main and the surgeon is obviously surgery. And a spread always abounds.

[Icelander]

Considering that Surgery rolls to treat gunshot wounds to the chest can easily take penalties of -6 and more*, but more than 80% of people shot in the chest recover if they get to an ER soon enough, I'm pretty sure that modern TL8 hospitals can have effective medical skills that are pretty high. I wouldn't blink at skill 14, some relevant techniques for the applicable speciality to reduce penalties, a bonus of +1 or +2 for having skilled assisants and the full +1/2 TL for a fully equipped ER.

*For a Vitals hit, there's a base -4 and then there's an extra -1 per 5 HP of injury. A typical 9mm hit to the Vitals is therefore at a -9 to stop the bleeding.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Considering that Surgery rolls to treat gunshot wounds to the chest can easily take penalties of -6 and more*, but more than 80% of people shot in the chest recover if they get to an ER soon enough, I'm pretty sure that modern TL8 hospitals can have effective medical skills that are pretty high. I wouldn't blink at skill 14, some relevant techniques for the applicable speciality to reduce penalties, a bonus of +1 or +2 for having skilled assisants and the full +1/2 TL for a fully equipped ER.

*For a Vitals hit, there's a base -4 and then there's an extra -1 per 5 HP of injury. A typical 9mm hit to the Vitals is therefore at a -9 to stop the bleeding.

For the record, these were generic fragmentation/crash/internal car damage HPs. So it was First Aid followed by Physician care.

(In fact, in GURPS, I'm somewhat puzzled by the separate specialisation of paramedics. They basically don't bring to the table much that a general surgeon-physician doesn't.)

[mlangsdorf]

Paramedics aren't supposed to bring anything to the table that qualified surgeons don't. Paramedics exist because they can be trained in a quarter the time or less and drawn from a larger and less capable pool. Thus, there can be more paramedics, increasing the chance that there's a paramedic in the ambulance when needed.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

Paramedics aren't supposed to bring anything to the table that qualified surgeons don't. Paramedics exist because they can be trained in a quarter the time or less and drawn from a larger and less capable pool. Thus, there can be more paramedics, increasing the chance that there's a paramedic in the ambulance when needed.

Aren't they supposed to perform immediate Surgery like stopping neck/eye/artery/vitals bleeding (not doable with First Aid), administer drugs (Physician), and figure what's killing the patient, which vessels are damaged etc. (Diagnosis)?
That means they need a point in Physician (administering drugs, use of first aid), then either buy First Aid or (more cleverly) raise Physician (since 12 is the absolute minimum, and 14 seems like a more reasonable minimum), and impressive levels of Surgery in order to stop bleeding under hurried circumstances and possibly in a steering ambulance car.