NPC skill levels that are highly relevant for PCs

[vicky_molokh]

Greetings, all!

Yesterday, two characters (PCs) got into a hospital due to sustaining 9 and 5 injury respectively. Aid from the paramedics restored 4 to the former and 3 to the latter, leaving 5 and 2 HP missing respectively.

The hospital was decent, so I deemed that the controlling skill (Physician) of the relevant NPCs was no less than 12, likely 14. All rolls were successes, resulting in a very quick recovery (2 rolls per day, being TL9).

Now, while one side of this story illustrates the superiority of GURPS medicine to that of the real world, ;)
the other point I'd like to examine is the level of NPCs' skills that are relevant to the PCs.

The default assumption is that a non-risky professional should have 12ish, while a risky one around 14ish. Then there's the equipment modifier set. It seems that +2 is not exactly implausible for a well-equipped hospital.

Other skills that may be of great interest when used by friendly NPCs: investigative skills of hired private eyes, Mechanic skills of a starport crew, professional skills of librarians when PCs need to perform research, Forgery skill of an NPC selling fake documents, Teaching skill of hired tutors (though the effects are somewhat fuzzy), gunsmith's skill when PCs want to modify their weapons (this one is brutal), perhaps the skill of whoever performs fire support (again, fuzzy).

What's your experience with 'nameless' or 'minor' NPC skills being highly relevant to the campaign?

Thanks in advance!

[digoraccoon]

In an old Warehouse 23 campaign, the party began utilizing alien gadgets on their adventures and would often come back with them damaged. So they hired an alien mechanic with relevant repair skills between 12-14, depending on the device to be repaired.
The Warehouse garage had a decent selection of tools for the alien, but a lot of it was either a bit outdated or in need or repair itself so often she'd only get at most a +1 bonus to her skill. As the campaign moved on she got better tools.

[Layander]

I mostly run medival, but I try to jumble people into skill levels based on something familiar to me, Apprentice have about a 10, journeymen have about 12, masters have about a 14, and guild masters or gransmasters have about about 16.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by Layander

I mostly run medival, but I try to jumble people into skill levels based on something familiar to me, Apprentice have about a 10, journeymen have about 12, masters have about a 14, and guild masters or gransmasters have about about 16.

On the last skill level, be careful of assigning proficiency levels to administrative ranks. At some point, advancement in any organization starts to shift from "doer" skills to "leader" skills, and in most guilds that starts to happen at or shortly after "Master". I would not normally expect (for instance) the guild master to be the best craftsman in any but the smallest guilds. If there are enough guild members that running the guild is a significant time expenditure then the guild will be run by guys who got up to some qualifying skill level (whatever Master takes in that guild, usually) and then started to devote more and more time to Administration, Leadership, Politics, and other such skills.

I would also consider that the size of the guild and its role in society will skew some or all of these thresholds - I could see master at anywhere from 14-16 easily, and some guild leaders will have skills and abilities on par with some high nobles.

[Lamech]

I would recommend requiring the appropriate rolls for finding someone with good skills if its not something well licensed and standardized. Sure for a well regulated hospital the doctors are going to have their specialties at 14+, and the nurses at 12+. But if you are going to a back street implant dealer, and IQ roll (or appropriate skill substitution) is called for. Failure... would be bad.

In general for regulated, or up-and-up type professions, 12ish for general professionals, 14ish for highly trained professionals (good grad school/professional school types) and 16ish for the upper crust of the highly trained (surgeons for example). Sometimes it will be pretty trivial to figure out where people are slotted into: nurse, doctor of family medicine, surgeon*. Other times it will take a skill roll (hiring an engineer, or finding a top tier lawyer)

Non-up and up types you'll have a similar spread, but its a heck of a lot harder to find the higher types, there will be less of them AND their will be people who are plain shoddy. (Don't take proper precautions, cut corners and/or have low skill)

*Note despite me using these as examples, they aren't specialized in the same thing IRL. Nurse has a good physician (nurse) score, a family practitioner probably has diagnosis as his main and the surgeon is obviously surgery. And a spread always abounds.

[Icelander]

Considering that Surgery rolls to treat gunshot wounds to the chest can easily take penalties of -6 and more*, but more than 80% of people shot in the chest recover if they get to an ER soon enough, I'm pretty sure that modern TL8 hospitals can have effective medical skills that are pretty high. I wouldn't blink at skill 14, some relevant techniques for the applicable speciality to reduce penalties, a bonus of +1 or +2 for having skilled assisants and the full +1/2 TL for a fully equipped ER.

*For a Vitals hit, there's a base -4 and then there's an extra -1 per 5 HP of injury. A typical 9mm hit to the Vitals is therefore at a -9 to stop the bleeding.

[Desthro]

I've found that any support skill really changes the way the campaign takes shape. A real fun one: Propaganda.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

The hospital was decent, so I deemed that the controlling skill (Physician) of the relevant NPCs was no less than 12, likely 14. All rolls were successes, resulting in a very quick recovery (2 rolls per day, being TL9).

First of all, you're dealing with TL9 medicine, so super-fast healing isn't unreasonable.

While the standard assumption in GURPS is that "qualified professionals" have skill level 12, that doesn't work in some situations. High-risk or high-stress professions where just about every job carries a skill penalty require skill levels of 14 to 16. That doesn't necessarily mean more points in skills, however.

Surgeons are taken from the top med school grads and they get additional training, so it's not unreasonable that a surgeon will have IQ +1 and Manual Dexterity +1 over your standard doctor. That will help Surgery skill.

Second, surgeons specialize, which will boost Surgery skill within their area of expertise. For example, Trauma surgeons are good at "filling holes" and "reconnecting plumbing" but not so good at things like delicate brain surgery or facial reconstruction. For that, once the patient has stabilized, they call on neurosurgeons and plastic surgeons.

Third, as everyone has pointed out, professionals benefit from good support and good tools. For something like a TL9 Level 1 Trauma center, it wouldn't be unreasonable to give a +6 bonus to skill, with intelligent AI providing real-time imaging and diagnostics giving effective skills of 12-14 in those areas.

But, for "routine" use, skill level 12 is good enough to get you a job and let you keep it. But that also implies that you get bonuses for routine tasks and good equipment that boost effective skill to 16+.

How "minor" NPC skills can seriously affect the game depends on the campaign. Generally, it's things like "way finding" or transportation skills which can mess up PCs.

But I don't like to set up situations where if the NPC messes up it derails the campaign. While "want of a nail" situations (failed Professional Skill: Farrier roll) are all too realistic, they're also anti-heroic. If NPCs mess up, it should be for a good dramatic reason, and it should be done in a way that allows the PCs to fix the situation.

[gruundehn]

Paramedics used to be and probably still are in constant contact with a doctor who is the one actually telling the paramedic what to do. So in addition to First Aid, Physician, and perhaps Surgeon the paramedic needs some skill with the reporting equipment so that accurate data is sent to the doctor and good observational skills to report to the doctor. The last might be presumed to be part of the relavent medical skills listed above.
Modern medicine is remarkably good at healing quickly, indeed being in a good hospital might grant the Advantage of Quick Healing on a temporary basis in addition to what the RAW grant. If your experiences are from several years ago, even as little as ten years ago perhaps, your experiences are grossly out of date.
Also remember that not all wounds are the same, even if they take the same number of Hit Points. That 2 HP wound might be just a small scratch depending upon what the original wound was and the HP that the character starts out with.

[Curmudgeon]

There may be another factor relevant to seeming high NPC skill levels and that's consultation.

I'm unsure that it's still valid and it wasn't available to Medical Assistants in the military when I was in service but the old "Emergency' TV show which was supposedly based on actual events encountered by Los Angeles paramedics attached to the LA Fire Department had the paramedics in radio contact with doctors at a hospital, so effectively, the doctors were guiding the paramedics in gathering the data for a diagnosis and making the IQ-based rolls for the paramedics, with the paramedics then making the rolls to remember and execute a particular procedure. [ninjaed! (Is that even properly a verb?)]

On a related note, it's probably not solely the equipment which gives a bonus to a doctor's roll in a hospital. I'd assume that it's similar to the effective skill of a contact as per the 3e GURPS Advantage: Contacts.

"Note that the effective skill is not necessarily the NPC's actual skill; the actual skill can be set by the GM if the NPC comes into regular play. For instance, the president of a local steel mill might have actual business-related skills of 16-18, but he has an effective skill of 21, making him worth 4 points, because he himself has good connections!" p. CI22.

In the same way, a hospital physician or surgeon may have a higher effective skill because there is a ready pool of experts that he can consult with right there and likely access, or at least readier access, to experts at other hospitals/medical schools for the really tough cases.