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Old 11-25-2011, 08:43 AM   #11
Figleaf23
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Default Re: Hit points of a baby during childbirth?

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Not WTH, but ROTFL.
Yep, MAO. GURPS is a funny game.
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Old 11-25-2011, 10:11 AM   #12
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Default Re: Hit points of a baby during childbirth?

Before I flee in abject terror, I just gotta ask...

Does the baby have superpowers too?
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Old 11-25-2011, 10:40 AM   #13
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Default Re: Hit points of a baby during childbirth?

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Originally Posted by hal View Post
Just out of curiosity, how many hit points does a newborn baby have when first born? When it comes time to make a death saving roll due to stressful childbirth, what is to be rolled against for the baby?

For example, lets assume we have a Mother whose HT is 11, and is giving birth to a child in a late TL 2 society. We have a mid-wife who is attending the mother's birthing process, so the final HT saving roll for the mother is rolled against HT+1(standard roll) +2 (TL bonus for midwife) for a modified 13 or less roll. Rolling a 15, the fates have decreed that this child should have a difficult entry into the world.

So, rolling the dice, it seems the fates are determined to be unkind, and the mother suffers 5 (correction: 10 because it is doubled) fatigue in the beginning stages of childbirth. During the final portion of childbirth, the fates are unkind again, and this time, a critical failure results. This means that instead of 2d6 fatigue damage to the mother, she suffers 2d6 x 2. Rolling an 8, we find that the poor mother suffers enough damage through childbirth, that she suffers a total of 5 + 16 (Correction: 26 fatigue not 21) or 21 points of fatigue. Since her Fatigue level is 10, she suffers a total of 11 points of damage (Correction: 16). Per the rules, any actual damage suffered by the mother, is also suffered in equal measure by the child (per LOW TECH COMPANION 1). So, at this point, the child has suffered what amounts to 11 (correction: 16) points of damage.

Per page 20 of GURPS CHARACTERS, we find that an infant has 30% of their ST (and consequently HP) plus perhaps a HT at their normal adult range, or maybe -1 overall. So, assuming a HT 10 Baby, with a ST of 3 - we have a child whose HP value is listed as 3, and HT 9. Damage of 11 points will place the child at zero points, plus -HT at 6 points of damage, and requires a second Death saving roll when damage reaches a total of 11 points. A third death saving roll is required at -16 points.

Am I doing this right?
The baby should have 4 HP. The mother suffers 16 HP; so does the baby. That takes it to -12 HP, which is three HT rolls to survive. If the midwife chooses to save the mother, the baby's very likely dead. Or the midwife can save the baby; in that case the mother is at, say, -7 HP (no roll to survive) or -8 HP (one roll to survive, about a 62% chance).

Childbirth was risky. A statistic I've seen quoted was that around 1900, in the UK, the maternal death rate was 1%. "She who faces death by torture for each life beneath her breast" was how Kipling (father of three) put it. And that was at TL5!

[/QUOTE]Also, along the same vein of questioning - shouldn't a mid-wife be rolling against her skill in an effort to aid the child birth, and on a success, grants the mother the bonus for TL, on a failure, doesn't help nor hinder, and on a crit fail, perhaps actively makes a mistake that hinders the childbirth process?[/QUOTE]

We looked at that option, I think, and decided instead to go with an analog of the way healing from injuries under a physician's care is handled. In a normal birth the midwife is mainly there to encourage and reassure the mother. Birth reportedly is incredibly painful—comparable to passing a kidney stone, and for rather similar reasons—but most women, most of the time, get through it without lasting injury. We assumed that a midwife could provide routine care without needing a skill roll, at the level that her TL enables.

Bill Stoddard
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Old 11-25-2011, 11:08 AM   #14
hal
 
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Default Re: Hit points of a baby during childbirth?

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I want the story that led you to consider this question, please.
I'm currently running a GURPS HARN campaign in which the three main player characters are all knights. One player is running the Sheriff, who has been married a few years, and is father to three children. Another player character is a female knight who is mother to two children. A third player gave up his knight who had 4 chilidren. Of these children, one was a set of twins who were concieved with the help of "Heir-in-a-bottle" potions, as well as two more such potions being drunk to concieve two more children. The rest were naturally concieved. Currently, the one female knight is pregnant yet again, and the Sheriff's wife is pregnant without knowing it (as yet).

For what it is worth, down time exists in my campaign world, and before too awful long, some of those children will be of an age where the parents will need to consider fostering them in other households, and perhaps receiving other children into their household to foster themselves. The King has offered to foster one child of the Sheriff even before the child in question was 2 years old. Any girl children who are born to a household, will likely have the chance to foster in other households should the parents desire, or said girl children will be raised by their own parents - relationship is optional.

So, in the long run, each of the player characters will be dealing with the possibility that their child may suffer a mortal incident before reaching the age of 15 (roughly 50% of all children born in those days never made it past the age of 15). I've a mind to simply roll against the Child's health stat to see if they make it to the age of 15, and then take it from there, with modifiers of +2 if there is a physician on hand throughout the bulk of their years. Problem is - some of the standard knightly households do not have sufficient resources left over to hire a physician. The King's household has the best physician money can buy plus an alchemist on hand, so that Child's future has some decent hope, but the other's will have to hope their luck holds up.

Soooooooo.

There you have it. Why as GM, I'm looking seriously at the rules for childbirth, and what effects it will have on the campaign. It also gives the bulk of the players reasons to get involved in their cultural heritage set in Kaldor. Someday, the players will be asked to retire their characters as Major NPC like characters, and take up the reins of their NPC children if they want to run such characters, or they can take up secondary characters for the next generation. The one player in question has been tasked with the thankless job of organizing a government sponsored Mage's guild in an effort to do away with issues that arose during the campaign with regards to the Harnic version of the Wizard's guild. The reason for this is so that the players can have the option of role playing mages in Kaldor if they desire. As it stands now - playing mages in the kingdom of Kaldor results in some pretty stiff "retrictions" that can culminate in an execution if the player character mages aren't careful.

For those who have been exposed to PENDRAGON, you might see a similarity to that and the passage of time in my campaign (and in truth, it was inspired by Pendragon). But it also gives the players a new way to enjoy their campaign world. We've been together since the 1980's, and we've been using HARN WORLD for a good many years now. This is perhaps the first time that children have entered into the game world in a serious manner. Heck, even the one squire for the player character Sheriff started off the campaign as an orphan whom the Player admired for certain of his displayed qualities such as courage, honesty, and strength of will to do the right thing instead of the wrong thing.
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Old 11-25-2011, 11:27 AM   #15
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Default Re: Hit points of a baby during childbirth?

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So, in the long run, each of the player characters will be dealing with the possibility that their child may suffer a mortal incident before reaching the age of 15 (roughly 50% of all children born in those days never made it past the age of 15).
Yes, that's exactly what the midwifery/childbirth rules are designed for.

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I've a mind to simply roll against the Child's health stat to see if they make it to the age of 15, and then take it from there, with modifiers of +2 if there is a physician on hand throughout the bulk of their years. Problem is - some of the standard knightly households do not have sufficient resources left over to hire a physician. The King's household has the best physician money can buy plus an alchemist on hand, so that Child's future has some decent hope, but the other's will have to hope their luck holds up.
That's not a bad approach. Though another option might be to use Status as the modifier. The high nobility (Status 6+) will survive if there's any chance of saving them; the desperately poor (Status -2) have a good chance of having no children grow up. Having a physician in your household (Status 3 and up, say) or being able to call one in (Status 0 and up) contribute, but so does having adequate food, clothing, shelter, and firewood (Status -1 and up).

Bill Stoddard
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Old 11-25-2011, 11:35 AM   #16
hal
 
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Default Re: Hit points of a baby during childbirth?

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post

The baby should have 4 HP. The mother suffers 16 HP; so does the baby. That takes it to -12 HP, which is three HT rolls to survive. If the midwife chooses to save the mother, the baby's very likely dead. Or the midwife can save the baby; in that case the mother is at, say, -7 HP (no roll to survive) or -8 HP (one roll to survive, about a 62% chance).

Childbirth was risky. A statistic I've seen quoted was that around 1900, in the UK, the maternal death rate was 1%. "She who faces death by torture for each life beneath her breast" was how Kipling (father of three) put it. And that was at TL5!
Currently, in the world in general, the dealth rate is roughly 1 in 17, with 99% of the deaths to mothers occurring in third world nations.

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post

We looked at that option, I think, and decided instead to go with an analog of the way healing from injuries under a physician's care is handled. In a normal birth the midwife is mainly there to encourage and reassure the mother. Birth reportedly is incredibly painful—comparable to passing a kidney stone, and for rather similar reasons—but most women, most of the time, get through it without lasting injury. We assumed that a midwife could provide routine care without needing a skill roll, at the level that her TL enables.

Bill Stoddard
The only reason I question this is because "saving" either patient is done AFTER the results of the birthing process (early labor and late labor) has been resolved.

As perhaps an altenative "house rule" approach:

Phase I: Mother rolls against HT+1 initially, and only gains a +2 bonus if the midwife in question makes her initial roll against mid-wifery. Failed roll means that the mother must survive the process on a HT+1 roll only. Critical failure on the mid-wifery roll results in double damage to the child (denotes circumstances that are difficult labors to begin with. As a skill 12 mid-wife would result in 75% of all attended births being more or less normal situations, that seems to be reasonable.

Phase II: Mother rolls against the same HT check the first time around. If either the mother or baby are in danger of dying, the midwife must now consider her options:

Save Mother - no modifiers to skill
Save Child - no modifiers to Skill
Save Mother priority, save child: -2 to save mother, -6 to save child

Modifiers:
Clean environment for childbirth: +1
Another Mid-wife present with skill 12+: +1
Midwife filthy from field or doesn't take time to clean up: -1


Thoughts?
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Old 11-25-2011, 11:37 AM   #17
Gorkamorka
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Default Re: Hit points of a baby during childbirth?

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Soooooooo.

There you have it.
Thank you...
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Old 11-25-2011, 11:45 AM   #18
hal
 
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Default Re: Hit points of a baby during childbirth?

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Yes, that's exactly what the midwifery/childbirth rules are designed for.



That's not a bad approach. Though another option might be to use Status as the modifier. The high nobility (Status 6+) will survive if there's any chance of saving them; the desperately poor (Status -2) have a good chance of having no children grow up. Having a physician in your household (Status 3 and up, say) or being able to call one in (Status 0 and up) contribute, but so does having adequate food, clothing, shelter, and firewood (Status -1 and up).

Bill Stoddard
I think what I might do based on your suggestion (which I like by the way), is to make it based upon the status of the household the child spends the bulk of their lifetime in. However, knights and squires with their status level of 1 and 2, is really independent of their status per se, but depends upon the lifestyle under which they are currently living - and a cap on status should likely be instituted as well.

Part of my issue with the mid-wifery rules is that it is a straight TL bonus to the mother's HT roll instead of one like that in the healing rules, where it is TL-3 or something of that order. One reason having a mid-wife on hand is helpful is that she can add to the final process in trying to save the mother or child - as compared to a woman who has to deal with those issues "alone" (ie without help).

So - the idea(s) are:

Bonus to HT rolls are based on TL-2, with the midwife's on-hand ability to save children/mothers a general bonus in and of itself.

Keep in mind, almost none of this ocurs without having rolled a 17, or 18 to begin with, which statistically speaking, only happens roughly 2.5% of the time (which is roughly HALF of what statistically occurs in real life in a TL 8 world with undeveloped nations without medical care etc). So, my suggestion would be to make it that the first roll is to see if there are complications involved to begin with, then the labor rules are used, then the mid-wife saving the patients are put into play.

Almost makes it worth it to have a perk titled "Baby Factory" that acts like a luck roll for birthing without complications ;)
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Old 11-25-2011, 11:48 AM   #19
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Default Re: Hit points of a baby during childbirth?

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GURPS players.....
Childbirth is one of the great human dramas, especially at low tech. Life, love, and the future are all on the line. If you are playing a gritty low tech game with socioeconomic realism like Hal, it is a Big Deal. Heck, even in the modern day, it can be the climax of a movie - why not the climax of an RPG session?

OK, OK, the supers example was rediculous, but I think that was deliberate.
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Old 11-25-2011, 12:35 PM   #20
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Default Re: Hit points of a baby during childbirth?

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The only reason I question this is because "saving" either patient is done AFTER the results of the birthing process (early labor and late labor) has been resolved.
That's a misunderstanding. You make the dice rolls in that sequence, yes. But in combat, you first roll the dice to see if the attack "hits," and then you roll the dice to see if the defense avoids or turns the attack. That doesn't mean that the enemy strikes at you, and the blow lands, and then you dodge or parry and retroactively "make it didn't happen": In fact the attack and defense are simultaneous. We just roll dice in sequence as a procedure.

The bad HT roll doesn't mean "you suffer this injury"; it means "you potentially suffer this injury if you don't have a midwife who can prevent it," just as a successful attack roll means "you will be hit if you don't dodge, parry, or block."

If it makes you feel better to move the discussion of the fatigue and injury to follow the discussion of the Midwifery roll, please do so. I felt it would be awkward, because you'd need a placeholder "on a failed HT roll the mother and infant are both at risk for damage" and then the midwifery discussion and then "If the midwife fails, both mother and infant suffer doubled fatigue," which is a bit repetitious. But the order of exposition I chose seems to have misled you.

Bill Stoddard
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