[RAW] Multiple First-Aid's Treating Shock

[hal]

As an additional thought - subsequent publications of rules grade material often clarify issues or even supersede the original rules. Also, because forums often have access to the original rules writers - questions can be posed on the forums where the original author can clarify AFTER the fact, what their intentions were. Sometimes, those clarifications work their way into subsequent printings of books, and sometimes they don't. In the end? It is up to the referee to decide what they will use in their games or not.

A running gag is "The Men in Black won't show up at your doorstop because of your house rules" came into being precisely because people do use houserules. However, if you want to use the Light Wounds Serious wounds rules of GURPS 3e (aka the Compendium I rules) - that's fine.

;)

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by MrFix

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.

For some reason you truncated my phrasing and thereby ended up completely misconstruing it.

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

[Plane]

I really wish we could come up with a new name for this since 'shock' also gets used for the DX/IQ penalties resulting from wounds that HPT avoids.

What if we resurrected 3e's "stun points" and first aid was actually restoring those?

I usually think of HP as being physical deformation damage and first aid somehow being able to instantaneously reverse that because it's just "I'm having a weird reaction that'll go away once I calm down" makes HP a bit overwhelmingly multi-faceted.

A recent alternative to 3e's 'stun points' might just be "Action Points" from Last Gasp, since you actually lose AP equal to your shock penalty (mitigated by HT roll MoS) so maybe applying First Aid could just help in restoring AP by relaxing someone and giving them a bonus to their HT recovery rolls when they're taking a Do Nothing?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Plane

I so maybe applying First Aid could just help in restoring AP by relaxing someone and giving them a bonus to their HT recovery rolls when they're taking a Do Nothing?

Even Bandaging isn't that fast. Except maybe for TL12 Bandage Spray.

Real First Aid never drops below 10 minutes. It's not doing anything "instantly" or on a timescale involving a single Concentrate.

[TGLS]

Ok, I think there's been some equivocation between GURPS shock and Medical shock going on here. This is what I found on the internet about treating shock.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/first-aid...s/art-20056620

It doesn't seem like it is something where repeated attempts seem like they would help.

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I admit I can imagine a more sophisticated system for managing injuries (using bleeding rules, bandaging stops bleeding, treating shock recovers HP lost to bleeding, tracking healing rolls on which injury) Of course, this would be very complicated. This is the advantage of an umpired system; you can look at the situation and say, "Yeah, those are two separate wounds, you can treat shock twice" or "No, you can't treat shock again after cutting yourself shaving after getting shot"

[AlexanderHowl]

Stun Points were for cinematic campaigns though, so they would not really have any place in any realistic campaign (physical damage does not just stun people). DR (Crushing, -40%; Tough Skin, -40%) [1/level] is probably more realistic, as it could represent a resistance to shock. It could reflect the type of person in real life who seems to be able to take phenomenal damage and still be functional. Even DR 5 (Crushing, -40%; Tough Skin, -40%) [5] could arguably be realistic, as some people have survived hundreds of unarmed attacks when they got mobbed, though DR (Crushing, -40%; Tough Skin, -40%) [1/level] should never exceed HP.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Stun Points were for cinematic campaigns though, so they would not really have any place in any realistic campaign
(physical damage does not just stun people).

It seems like they would be realistic so long as you treated all attacks as "shoot to kill" removing the option to do "stun point only" attacks except perhaps for unique supernatural innate attacks designed to gradually knock people unconscious without risking death to them.

That way the policy from pg 151 of Compendium 2 "all regular damage does stun damage as well" could generically apply.

The special function could then basically be that restoring HP does not restore Stun Points, so you could still have someone knocked out from shock to the system despite having fast regeneration capabilities or having healers helping them out mid-battle.

Of course since "Extra Stun" is an advantage (pg 24 of Compendium 1) you could probably have Regeneration (Stun) for recouping it faster, or a healing spell/advantage designed to restore shock points instead of hit points.

The idea just to set apart highly-tangible damage you fix by stitching together wounds vs less-tangible damage you fix by rest/comfort.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

DR (Crushing, -40%; Tough Skin, -40%) [1/level] is probably more realistic, as it could represent a resistance to shock. It could reflect the type of person in real life who seems to be able to take phenomenal damage and still be functional. Even DR 5 (Crushing, -40%; Tough Skin, -40%) [5] could arguably be realistic, as some people have survived hundreds of unarmed attacks when they got mobbed, though DR (Crushing, -40%; Tough Skin, -40%) [1/level] should never exceed HP.

This would only help to prevent injury from crushing attacks though, the idea of buying Extra Stun is you can also withstand the shock long-term effects of shock to the nervous system if stabbed/shot too.

[AlexanderHowl]

People generally do not shrug off being cut, impaled, shot, etc. multiple times, which is why I ended up choosing crushing damage because it is plausible given the evidence presented by real life. The idea that an individual could survive being shot multiple times by a pistol and not be harmed is cinematic, not realistic. There is no 'shooting to stun' or 'stabbing to stun' in real life.

Now, of you wanted, you could potentially allow characters in cinematic campaigns to add temporary enhancements to their attacks, at a cost of 2 FP and a penalty of -1 to skill per net +10% (multiple enhancements and limitations could be taken together). Gunslinger, Heroic Archer, Trained by a Master, and/or Weapon Master should be the prerequistites, and they could treat each combination of modifiers as a specific technique. For example, a character with Gunslighter and Guns-25 could add No Blumt Trauma, No Signature, No Wounding, and Side Effect (Sleep), for a net -10 to skill, allowing them to safely knock someone asleep with a 'quiet' shot for 2 FP.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

People generally do not shrug off being cut, impaled, shot, etc. multiple times, which is why I ended up choosing crushing damage because it is plausible given the evidence presented by real life. The idea that an individual could survive being shot multiple times by a pistol and not be harmed is cinematic, not realistic. There is no 'shooting to stun' or 'stabbing to stun' in real life.

You don't appear to acknowledge that I'm talking about wounds inflicting damage to both HP/SP simultaneously.

It's cinematic to do SP instead of HP, I'm arguing for SP in addition to HP except for cinematic non-realistic special weapons (ie allowing a new "Stun Attack" version of Innate Attack)

The only impact of Stun Points appears to be having a threshold at which automatic unconsciousness occurs. When this is depleted at the same rate as HP and since you only get 5xHT (perhaps 5xST or 5xHP in 4e?) it occurs when you're at -4xHP which is pretty close to the -5xHP threshold where people automatically die anyway.

I like how it creates an injury range at which "injury is guaranteed to cause unconsciousness but not death" which we otherwise lack: people always have SOME chance of remaining conscious up until guaranteed death by passing HT/Will rolls.

If this reflects nervous system shock (rest/comfort restores) vs obvious rip-and-tear damage (surgery restores) it's interesting to reflect that as a separate injury mechanic, similar to how Fatigue Point loss represents energy loss.

[AlexanderHowl]

I think that it is really an unnecessary complexity for most games, though everyone has their preferences. If Stun Points are lost when HP is lost, and HP loss more realistically represents unconsciousness, then Stun Points really become unnecessary.

A more realistic option might be Endurance Points (EP). Characters would receive EP equal to their Will and could spend EP to automatically pass HT rolls or Will rolls to avoid death or unconsciousness. In the case of avoiding death, they would need to spend 2 EP (plus two for every multiple of HP below '0' HP). In the case of avoiding unconsciousness, they would need to spend 1 EP (plus one for every multiple of HP below '0' HP). Characters would recover one EP for every HP that they recover.