First aid, physicker and the instant fix

[Wayne]

One thing that has always bothered me is the "instant fix".

In GURPS, with one second turns, the players say I want to do first aid on someone… Next turn I want to hit the bad guy. It's not much better in TFT with 5 second turns.

If you're a physicker and someone's down and bleeding out, you have to drop everything and help that PC. That's it, for you the combat's over. You can rejoin but your friend will die as soon as you remove your hands from the wound.

How do you handle this?

Magic healing is magical so it probably doesn't apply, instant fix! On the other hand a potion, will take some time to be absorbed.

[Jim Kane]

Originally Posted by Wayne

If you're a physicker and someone's down and bleeding out, you have to drop everything and help that PC. That's it, for you the combat's over. You can rejoin but your friend will die as soon as you remove your hands from the wound.

How do you handle this?

Well... I would gently explain to the player who is the party Physicker that the RAW states that he can only attend his fallen companion *after* the combat has concluded; and not during

From TFT:ITL p. 14: PHYSICKER (2). Healer's ability. A Physicker can heal up to 2 hits on any humanoid figure (wounds only — not exhaustion) after any combat or accident.

So although his desire to heal his wounded companion is admirable, he cannot engage in the delicate nature of healing while combat is occurring. Furthermore, it take 5 minutes (60 turns) to complete the healing of 2 wounds - uninterrupted.

JK

[JLV]

I'm not sure how you fix that issue other than by ruling it takes X minutes to effectively apply first aid, and XX minutes to attempt a more permanent "Physicker" healing attempt.

I don't know what's "realistic" in this context, but many years ago one of my first groups settled on five minutes for First Aid (to stabilize the patient and stop bleeding out), and 60 minutes for Physicker healing -- the latter of which I feel is probably grossly incorrect, and maybe a better "system" would say "X minutes per hit inflicted, regardless of the number healed;" so for Physickers maybe it would be 10 minutes per hit suffered, but he can still only heal the regular number of hits as specified in the Talent. So if your figure suffered 8 hits during the fight, it will take the healer 80 minutes to work on you in order to actually heal whatever the number of hits the Physicker can heal. (Sorry I can't be more specific on the Physicker Talent, but all my books are packed for fire evacuation, and since we're still kind of on the line here, I hesitate to unpack them to answer this question.)

[Wayne]

Thanks guys, that's very helpful

[flankspeed]

Originally Posted by JLV

.... (Sorry I can't be more specific on the Physicker Talent, but all my books are packed for fire evacuation, and since we're still kind of on the line here, I hesitate to unpack them to answer this question.)

I hope you stay safe, JLV, and don’t need a Physicker for you or any family/friends. Best wishes for things to go as well as they possibly can!

As for Physicker in-game, I normally leave that for after the battle, and if time becomes a factor, I would lean in the direction of 5 minutes per point of damage the character has taken to perform Physicker healing, assuming that the damage was only general torso damage primarily requiring simple bandaging.

If we get into aimed shots that have affected limbs or some such, I may make special rulings (less time if another party member can get the needed wood for splints or crutches or some such, more time if severe damage effects were inflicted), but we would have to cross that bridge when we got there.

I personally don’t want too much realism in games. In medieval times, the risk of infection and the lethality of internal bleeding without modern surgical techniques were nothing to sneeze at. I would never want to go through in real life what my character was experiencing in game, and I don’t think it’s any fun to focus on the reality of damage effects in too great a detail.

A leg injury could leave you with a permanent limp, for example, but I don’t normally worry about that much realism because to me it ruins the fun.

[Skarg]

* In both TFT & GURPS, I would let figures try to initiate healing during combat, but in both games, normal healing requires more turns of healing than almost all combats are likely to take, so although there may be some exceptions, it not only doesn't heal instantly, but it's usually best to wait to start healing until after combat is over.

* In GURPS, it tends to be even more clear than in TFT. The battle could likely be over before you even get your first aid kit ready, and just stopping bleeding generally takes 60 turns. Actual first aid would take 600 combat turns or more to do during combat.

* I agree about potions. (I don't even like magical healing to take effect quickly enough to undo damage during combat.)

[JLV]

I'm kind of with flankspeed here. In my more recent groups, I've just said that the Physicker does his schtick after combat without worrying too much about the time frame, and that seems to work well enough. If there's some kind of time limit on the party, I think I'd just rule that the Physicker can't do his schtick until they get to a place of safety (but he can do enough first aid to stabilize the victim so they can get to a place of safety). Basically, I went with KISS, in other words...

(And by "place of safety," I just mean someplace where they can take a break for a while without being jumped -- so an empty room with spikes holding the door or something.)

[Jim Kane]

Originally Posted by JLV

I'm kind of with flankspeed here. In my more recent groups, I've just said that the Physicker does his schtick after combat without worrying too much about the time frame, and that seems to work well enough. If there's some kind of time limit on the party, I think I'd just rule that the Physicker can't do his schtick until they get to a place of safety (but he can do enough first aid to stabilize the victim so they can get to a place of safety). Basically, I went with KISS, in other words...

(And by "place of safety," I just mean someplace where they can take a break for a while without being jumped -- so an empty room with spikes holding the door or something.)

We have always played with the time rules in full effect in order to get the maximum tension from the effect of the loss of time as a managed resource.

Time Constricture is one of the most powerful tools a GM has for maintaining and building the tension-level of a Labyrinth.

Also, as the referee, I *advance* the Labyrinth enemies and creatures every turn (or in groups of turns) on the GM map - just like the players advance - so clicking down the 60 turns it takes to heal a party member are really valuable,... as all the Labyrinth Creatures are moving around down there, especially when some of them are actively tracking the Adventure Party by scent... etc.

JK

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by Jim Kane

We have always played with the time rules in full effect in order to get the maximum tension from the effect of the loss of time as a managed resource.

Time Constricture is one of the most powerful tools a GM has for maintaining and building the tension-level of a Labyrinth.

Also, as the referee, I *advance* the Labyrinth enemies and creatures every turn (or in groups of turns) on the GM map - just like the players advance - so clicking down the 60 turns it takes to heal a party member are really valuable,... as all the Labyrinth Creatures are moving around down there, especially when some of them are actively tracking the Adventure Party by scent... etc.

I completely agree. Often there is no threat after combat, but the PCs often won't know whether there is or not. And some of the most tense, interesting, and exciting adventures have been those where there is an ongoing situation and what gets done in time & space on a larger/longer scale determines what happens and can be just as important as the situations at combat scale.

Situations that have come up in outdoor travel and towns particularly come to mind.

If you may be going to have to deal with several encounters over the space of an hour or longer, and have other movements and tasks to perform that take minutes to do, then who gets healed when can matter a lot, and it can make sense sometimes to get started during combat (if the wounded figure & the physicker aren't needed in the current fight) not because they'll be healed during that same fight, but because when the fighter & physicker will next be available is important, and every turn may end up being significant.

[JLV]

Originally Posted by Jim Kane

We have always played with the time rules in full effect in order to get the maximum tension from the effect of the loss of time as a managed resource.

Time Constricture is one of the most powerful tools a GM has for maintaining and building the tension-level of a Labyrinth.

Also, as the referee, I *advance* the Labyrinth enemies and creatures every turn (or in groups of turns) on the GM map - just like the players advance - so clicking down the 60 turns it takes to heal a party member are really valuable,... as all the Labyrinth Creatures are moving around down there, especially when some of them are actively tracking the Adventure Party by scent... etc.

JK

Nah. I don't manage things 5-second turn by 5-second turn. I break things up into manageable chunks, and TFT is deadly enough that I don't have to spend a lot of time rolling for wandering monsters unless the players are purposefully wasting time -- then all bets are off. Believe me, the characters will get toughed up enough during the adventure without me throwing a bunch of extras at them. Then too, I "plan" my dungeons and wilderness areas thoroughly enough that I have monsters/creatures/plants/whatever in "zones" where if the characters violate the creature's "zone," the creature will begin actively taking steps about that, so I don't really need a ton of wandering creatures (other than an occasional slime or swarm), or time constraints on the party -- the very nature of the environment does all that kind of work for me, and self-triggers to boot...