First aid kits

[Saabre]

Personally I ruled that part of Cost of Living is refilling whatever you've used from your First Aid Kit.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Saabre

Personally I ruled that part of Cost of Living is refilling whatever you've used from your First Aid Kit.

That seems very reasonable for most kinds of campaign. I could see GMs of survival games wanting to make more of it. That doesn't address "how many wounds can you treat" but in the games I play in, large numbers of injuries between chances to refill are very rare.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by Saabre

Personally I ruled that part of Cost of Living is refilling whatever you've used from your First Aid Kit.

This seems about right, IMO. Replacement band-aids and antiseptics can be bought in the modern day while grocery shopping, after all.

Originally Posted by johndallman

That seems very reasonable for most kinds of campaign. I could see GMs of survival games wanting to make more of it. That doesn't address "how many wounds can you treat" but in the games I play in, large numbers of injuries between chances to refill are very rare.

Only games I can think of that are "large numbers of injuries between chances to refill" are Dungeon Fantasy games, and there you have healing magic (spells and potions) to help keep the times when you need to break out the first aid kid at a minimum.

[Sam Baughn]

Hi-Tech says a small first aid kit can treat one major wound or a couple of smaller ones. I'd say larger kits have about that capacity per pound of weight.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by Ashtagon

Come to think of it, commercial first aid kits in the UK can't, for legal reasons, include any "lotions, potions, or pills" (in case someone has an unexpected allergy). This would definitely make a kit less effective compared to what the game rules assume, but by how much?

Originally Posted by Bruno

... not even alcohol wipes or iodine wipes for cleanup? Or a straight un-medicated Vasoline?

Antibiotic ointments have been proven, repeatedly, to slow wound healing and promote antibiotic resistant bacteria. So allergies be damned, they're not actually useful. If you've had wound care in the last five or so years from a nurse, they'll totally give you the whole lecture. Twice over if they think you haven't got the point yet :)

On the other claw, the base of the ointment, which is basically Vasoline, is actually supposed to be a pretty damn good wound treatment on its own. Keeps it moist and germs out of it. Presuming you've remembered to clean the wound first, of course.

Workplace kits won't include anything like that - you're mainly confined to alcohol free wipes and dressings. But then I've acquired sports themed kits that include non-medicinal products such as Vaseline, muscle sprays and the like and those intended for private use typically do include antiseptic creams.

Typically the first thing you do with a private kit is customise it - often by adding your choice of painkillers and creams.

For reference this is a link to the supplier I use for work - a leading, and fairly typical, UK first aid kit dealer.

[Bicorn]

Originally Posted by Perfect Organism

Hi-Tech says a small first aid kit can treat one major wound or a couple of smaller ones. I'd say larger kits have about that capacity per pound of weight.

One major or two smaller per pound, plus a larger number of treatments for tiny wounds (bandaids) sounds like a good rule of thumb.

[panton41]

Originally Posted by Bicorn

One major or two smaller per pound, plus a larger number of treatments for tiny wounds (bandaids) sounds like a good rule of thumb.

I'd argue a wound that can be treated with only a Band-Aid is probably zero points of damage. (Basically below the resolution of the system.) I seem to recall that even a 1 HP penetrating (cut, imp, pi, etc.) wound would likely need stitches at a minimum. (But, I wouldn't say that all wounds that need stitches are 1 HP.)

[dfinlay]

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

Only games I can think of that are "large numbers of injuries between chances to refill" are Dungeon Fantasy games, and there you have healing magic (spells and potions) to help keep the times when you need to break out the first aid kid at a minimum.

Or any game where you are stranded away from civilization for extended periods of time (a lot of horror, frontier exploration, shipwreck, etc.)

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by panton41

I'd argue a wound that can be treated with only a Band-Aid is probably zero points of damage. (Basically below the resolution of the system.) I seem to recall that even a 1 HP penetrating (cut, imp, pi, etc.) wound would likely need stitches at a minimum. (But, I wouldn't say that all wounds that need stitches are 1 HP.)

I use Band Aids only to keep the blood off my clothing and furniture. I tend to think of bandages for real injuries.

I stepped on a lot of nails as a kid that I would classify as a single point of impaling damage that nevertheless didn't need stitches or anything but a few days of hopping around.
Then again, my arm got impaled by a nail and I partially hanged from it. Because of odd angling, I wouldn't classify it as even a single point of damage.

[Barghaest]

Originally Posted by dfinlay

Or any game where you are stranded away from civilization for extended periods of time (a lot of horror, frontier exploration, shipwreck, etc.)

Running a post-apocalyptic survival game right now... so far the PCs have only encountered mundane threats (people, hunger, starvation, environment, illness) so limitations on first aid supplies would be pretty important to me (and I was already using a similar guideline to the one discussed here from HT)... especially since there's no economy for people to assume "cost of living" is refilling kits for them. >:D