[RAW] Multiple First-Aid's Treating Shock

[Tomsdad]

I think the rules have to be read with a reasonable view of what they're trying to create (or more specifically what you trying to create with them).

So yeah you could interpret them to allow the scenario were you take a series of 1 hp injuries in order to top of your HP's with series of d6 first aid rolls at TL8, or even teh idea of repeated rolls on the same injury after an initial success. Because the rules don't explicitly say you can't do this. But frankly that's a choice in interpterion and what you allow with a view for how you want first aid to work in you game

And if you want to do that, that's cool.

In general I prefer an accommodating rule set than a restrictive one, but that does mean you have to interpret them at times

[Donny Brook]

Shock is not an ongoing condition. Once it is treated, it cannot be treated again.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

I think the rules have to be read with a reasonable view of what they're trying to create (or more specifically what you trying to create with them).

So yeah you could interpret them to allow the scenario were you take a series of 1 hp injuries in order to top of your HP's with series of d6 first aid rolls at TL8, or even teh idea of repeated rolls on the same injury after an initial success. Because the rules don't explicitly say you can't do this. But frankly that's a choice in interpterion and what you allow with a view for how you want first aid to work in you game

And if you want to do that, that's cool.

In general I prefer an accommodating rule set than a restrictive one, but that does mean you have to interpret them at times

That's nice, but what 'interpretation' of the rule are you actually suggesting?

And does it involve inserting several completely original sentences into the RAW?

Rules should be read with a bias towards the reasonable. But they need to be read. Not necessarily followed, if you don't like where they lead, but it's hard to communicate effectively if one doesn't distinguish between the rules we can all read and the ones that are all in your head.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

That's nice,

why thank you ;-)

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

but what 'interpretation' of the rule are you actually suggesting?

The one I posted earlier, you can attempt repeated successive treatments for "shock" but can get only one sucess after which it's treated.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

And does it involve inserting several completely original sentences into the RAW?

IMO no, but then IMO the intent is clear both by what the specific rule does, the situation it relates to and how it fits in the wider context of a section of rules for recovering from injury.

But frankly I'm not a rules lawyer and GURPS isn't a legal text, I'm always going to value my perception of reasonable intent and the need to produce a rule book less than 1000pgs long, than the desire to pre-emptively counter every conceivable interpretation except the one true one.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Rules should be read with a bias towards the reasonable. But they need to be read. Not necessarily followed, if you don't like where they lead, but it's hard to communicate effectively if one doesn't distinguish between the rules we can all read and the ones that are all in your head.

As I said I already posted in the thread how I run this, "be read" indeed!

[MrFix]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Shock is not an ongoing condition. Once it is treated, it cannot be treated again.

P.S.: Let's not hang up on the name of the maneuver, as GURPS is often not very good with these things, and description of the maneuver also outlines "applying a more elaborate dressing", which reasonably can happen multiple times if the victim has multiple wounds. Of course, with GURPS having no rules for actual real life shock, only 'momentary stun of pain', the naming is doubly obtuse.

You can't make a statement like that without actually defining what Shock is as understood by this rule. It's not GURPS shock you get from damage, it's not IRL shock since GURPS does not understand it as a concept or affliction. The only hard statement is that it treats 1d-x of HP.

[jacobmuller]

Originally Posted by MrFix

After playing GURPS for years thinking that you could only Treat Shock (and thus restore a 1d of HP) once per... unspecified time, I actually went ahead to read the entry for Treating Shock in detail. There's no outright stated limit to number of times, or delay between attempts, or separation by wound.

RAW, it seems, you can try to Treat Shock as many times as you like, regardless of previous outcome, with no delay between attempts. This concept doesn't seem to be clarified in uFAQ either.

Do any GURPS books expand on this or provide explicit limits on Treat Shock?
Do you understand Treat Shock as a one-time thing? If so, at what point can Treat Shock be used again on the same character?


P.S.: Let's not hang up on the name of the maneuver, as GURPS is often not very good with these things, and description of the maneuver also outlines "applying a more elaborate dressing", which reasonably can happen multiple times if the victim has multiple wounds. Of course, with GURPS having no rules for actual real life shock, only 'momentary stun of pain', the naming is doubly obtuse.

After years of exegesis, I can say for certain that typos, omissions and errata mean that some rules are actually written differently in one basic book than in the other and bits have been lost between edits - but clarification can be found via the forum.
There are many things implied and assumed. You can interpret things differently, and if RAW, or translations of it, doesn't fit your needs, you can do it your own way: I love many of the suggested improvements I've seen and made a list of House Rules I like. I've aired some of my own and edited them in response to invaluable forum replies.
I've also discovered I've badly misread many things, and had my understanding of reality fixed too.
I guess it's a bit like reading a religious book - what is written in the version you're reading might not be the original text and what a word means to you might be definition number 7 in the dictionary and the author meant definition 1 and you'd never heard of it...

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by MrFix

You can't make a statement like that without actually defining what Shock is as understood by this rule. It's not GURPS shock you get from damage, it's not IRL shock since GURPS does not understand it as a concept or affliction. The only hard statement is that it treats 1d-x of HP.

Okay. Shock in this usage refers to the amount of lost HP that can be restored by one application of First Aid skill after bandaging.

[MrFix]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Okay. Shock in this usage refers to the amount of lost HP that can be restored by one application of First Aid skill after bandaging.

Very well, but this explanation clashes with the idea that it's a one time thing, since 'amount of lost HP that can be restored' is unrelated to actual HP lost, so a 3 HP wound can receive full 6 HP of healing at TL8. And unless you introduce wound-by-wound tracking of lost HP, this extra 3 HP can then heal a different wound, previous one, that could've already been treated, as mentioned in the thread.

Example:
10 HP man starts his day with a barfight
Exits it with 3 HP left.
Uses first aid and regains 3 HP, he now has 6 HP left.
He gets shanked on the way to the market for 2 HP
Uses first aid and regains 6 HP, he now has 10 HP, ie he's completely healthy.

If we assume that treating shock is only once, until the next wound/encounter/day, this sort of oddity is introduced where being hurt even more allows one to avoid lengthy stay at the hospital, because ultimately first aid refreshes faster, under quicker conditions than staying at a hospital or trying to sleep the wounds off.

The only way to stop this is to limit the amount of HP healed to not go above the last wound, minus any other sources of healing, to prevent excess first aid healing from spreading to other wounds. But that is definitely a house rule and a fix, since such limit doesn't exist in the basic set.

On the other hand, unlimited first aid negates the need for lengthy healing by way of hospital and physician, which is also not good (although I wanna repeat that it is a statement more about lengthy treatment's uselessness as opposed to first aid's power).

Hence the purpose of this thread. Basic Set 4e has been released in 2008, and I was hoping that some sort of official fix/explanation/errata/uFAQ statement exists to make first-aid make sense as it was intended to, not via house-rules because frankly "just house rule it" is not a very useful statement because you're not always the GM, and the GM's taste in houserules might differ, but hard-written rules made by designers of the system are normally in higher respect for obvious reasons. You can houserule everything, but people seldom do because in the end they want to play GURPS, rather than MyOwnS.

[corwyn]

Originally Posted by MrFix

The only way to stop this is to limit the amount of HP healed to not go above the last wound, minus any other sources of healing, to prevent excess first aid healing from spreading to other wounds. But that is definitely a house rule and a fix, since such limit doesn't exist in the basic set.

On the other hand, unlimited first aid negates the need for lengthy healing by way of hospital and physician, which is also not good (although I wanna repeat that it is a statement more about lengthy treatment's uselessness as opposed to first aid's power).

Hence the purpose of this thread. Basic Set 4e has been released in 2008, and I was hoping that some sort of official fix/explanation/errata/uFAQ statement exists to make first-aid make sense as it was intended to, not via house-rules because frankly "just house rule it" is not a very useful statement because you're not always the GM, and the GM's taste in houserules might differ, but hard-written rules made by designers of the system are normally in higher respect for obvious reasons. You can houserule everything, but people seldom do because in the end they want to play GURPS, rather than MyOwnS.

2004, but anyway...

I just limit First Aid to damage taken the current fight/event. No need to punish players for taking a 1-point wound at the end of a fight. Still a house rule, but one I've found satisfactory for 25 years.

[hal]

Pg 381:

Shock: Any injury that causes a loss of HP also causes “shock.”

It continues with what Shock DOES in game terms, which is to inflict a penalty to skills/(IQ and DX) for one turn only. But that is a function of what it DOES, not necessarily what it means.

There are other mentions of shock - but a clear reading of them versus what is said in the first aid section on page 424 show that the word "Shock" as used elsewhere, is NOT the same as used in the first aid section. In GURPS, shock can also mean the initial wave of pain or stunning experienced when taking an initial injury, to a maximum of -4 points in most instances, or -8 points for a male suffering a groin attack from a blunt weapon.

So, what are we looking at overall? First Aid treatment is applied once per "incident" in the sense of the initial treatment. Follow up rules then take over as to "natural healing". In lieu of competent "first aid", the body automatically goes to the "natural healing" aspect of the rules.

So, what rules does GURPS BASIC SET CAMPAIGNS invoke?

Rule of Bandaging: This automatically permits a character to regain 1 hit point. Does this require a skill roll? It doesn't seem to imply the need for one UNLESS there is a "bleeder" involved (see pg 420). THERE, we have a requirement of a successful first aid roll to stop the BLEEDING, not the bandaging aspects to recover 1 point.

It should be pointed out that the rules for "Bleeding" are considered to be "Optional rules". It should also be pointed out that accumulated damage to extremities crippling them is also optional. So someone who received 5 1 point blunt damage punches in theory (ie GURPS rules) can have their arm crippled. More on this later...

Let's look at the rules for accumulating injury points ( ie hit points of damage) by means of the example on page 419. We can see that the poor character (or perhaps NPC) is getting hammered in a lopsided fight. Eventually, the accumulation of injury will result in a dead character, and ultimately, a pulverized character once inflicted damage takes the character to past -10x HP level.

But - let's look at the comment about mulitple uses of First aid. No where does it say that you get one first aid roll PER wound. Nowhere does it say that you get multiple rolls against first aid at all. But - it does state (not only in the campaigns book, but also under the description of Skill), that a First Aid roll is required to stop bleeding.

Interesting that. If you get a "bleeding wound" (which is optional by the way), and it is treated successfully, it is no longer a bleeding wound. If 10 minutes later, you get another bleeder wound, by implication, you can always try first aid to STOP the bleeding or hope that the patient stops bleeding on their own - naturally. In games where the GM doesn't use the optional rule, this is a moot point.

So, what is the healing section rules really saying?

1) you get 1 hit point back for bandaging. Unless bleeding is involved, it doesn't seem as though you NEED a first aid roll for bandaging.

2) once you've gotten the patient bandaged, you may treat the actual injuries, which may accumulate before the bandaging attempt is made and before the attempt to treat the injuries is made (which GURPS rules called "Shock").

3) the progression of the healing rules indicated bandaging, treatment of shock, Surgery, Stabilizing Mortal Wound, Repairing Lasting Crippling Injuries, Repairing Permanent Crippling injuries, and finally Medical Care.

Closer examination of Surgery is such that it can only fix things under specific circumstances - not recover hit points. Physicians - also seem to have to work using the First Aid rules for recovering hit points - not that they gain any specific benefit per se OVER first aid as a skill set.

In the end? The role of the GM is to make decisions based on their understanding of the rules. Where the rules are explicit and unambiguously written, no need to worry about the validity of the rule, no real need for the Referee either when you get down to it. But - where there is ambiguity, or it isn't explicit, or what have you, the opportunity for a rules lawyer to say "Where is it written explicitly" can just as easily be restated to "Where is it written that your interpretation is valid?". The only VALID interpretation of any rule in any game session, devolves to the GM directly. That is why we do have house rules. First aid, when applied to counter the effects of wounds has two Components: Bandaging and treatment. Any time you have a set of rules interpretations that can result in absurd end results, is probably NOT the correct interpretation! If you lose 2 pints of blood, does it matter if it came from 1 injury site or 3? Not really. Should the extra 50% damage from cutting damage be added to the bleeding rules? Seems like double dipping, but what the heck, there IS a difference between blunt damage and damage that slices the flesh. There is even more a difference between a clean slice and a RIP in the wound - but hey, that's details that GURPS doesn't really get into.

So - you want explicit rules that say only ONE first aid attempt per wound, that is YOUR call actually (not explicitly saying you can, not explicitly saying you can't). But any absurd result that comes from your ruling would imply that you're applying your ruling in a fashion not intended.

<<shrug>>